


Looking For What You Aren't Trying to Find

by WizardCatKitten



Category: BnHA, My Hero Academia, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Mineta Minoru Doesn't Exist, Angst, Assassin Kaminari, Assassin Kaminari Denki, BMFA Denki Kaminari, Based on the background from the Dark Side of the Sun, Can be read and understood on it’s own tho, Give Denki a hug plz, Hurt/Comfort, IDK who but know they’re there, I’ve always wanted to make tags, Kaminari Denki Needs a Hug, Kaminari Denki is a Mess, Kaminari Denki is not the UA traitor, Kaminari Denki-centric, Little bakusquad moments, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Relationship could be a friendship, Secrets, Shinsou Hitoshi Needs a Hug, Someone is tho, UA traitor reveal, Unless you want him too, Villain Parents, Watching, maybe? - Freeform, no beta we die like men, ok. The traitor be doing a bit more than watching ;), past trauma, take it how you will, this is fun, wump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26219827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WizardCatKitten/pseuds/WizardCatKitten
Summary: Kaminari has a secret. He hasn’t told anyone, he CAN’T. He loves his friends with everything in his heart which is why they can’t know. They’ll hate him. He would never WILLINGLY tell his friends but luck never is on his side, is it? How will the electric user make it out of the hero course’s mandatory, last minute test that screams “fishy as fuck” in one piece? Find out on this episode of some random persons fanfic :3
Relationships: Friendship or Relationship tbh, Kaminari Denki & Shinsou Hitoshi, Kaminari Denki/Shinsou Hitoshi
Comments: 40
Kudos: 447





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Dark Side of the Sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24793519) by [Spacepeeps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacepeeps/pseuds/Spacepeeps). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y’all this is my first fanfic soooooo yeah… :/. Off to a great start lol. So this fic is based off the dark side of the sun but can easily be read on it’s own. I just used the same back story cause I’m lazy… So read the first few chapters of that if you want more background info. Or just read it all (That’s what I do lol). I’ve had it for a while but haven’t really done anything with it cause I keep telling myself I’ll edit it (but I won’t 😱). So, like, deal with the bad grammar and shit. If you spot a mistake drop it in the comments and I’ll try to fix it (IDK how this works tho so it’s like a fifty fifty chance it’ll change but I’d give you a nice pat on the back and maybe a high five). So enjoy I guess? Or don’t? I kinda care but also don’t. Also, how do notes work?
> 
> YEET

Looking around about half of class 1-A and 1-B we’re sitting on the bench against the wall. Those who weren’t bored out of their mind from sitting for what must have been hours looked nervous as hell. While he was definitely in the former category he couldn’t blame them. Who wouldn’t be nervous after being dragged into a mandatory test with absolutely no warning? 

When Aizawa made the announcement to the class he was pretty sure he (nearly) gave Yaoyorozu a heart attack and that Midoriya accidentally activated his quirk breaking his pencil in the process. Aizawa didn’t even try to calm them down. He just curled into his sleeping bag until they had to leave, leaving the class to freak the fuck out. Imidenantly, Mina turned to her right to yell her complaints to him, Sero, and Kiri. “What the hellllllll! They can’t just throw this shit on us! We can barely pass a test when we get time to study and now this!” She says as she frantically waves her hands around.

“I know man! I think I might actually be dying”

“Umm dude you might wanna take a rain check on that one. I’m pretty sure Midoriya's the one dying right now.” Todoroki, Iida, and Uraraka we’re now gathering around a post-panic attack mumbling mess rapidly flipping through whatever notes were in his imminent vicinity. Ah ‘tis youth. For a moment he wonders what woulda happened if he had ever done something like that around his parents. Immediately he has to restrain a laugh at the thought, me having a panic attack? Yeah right! He lets the thought of his parents slip away willing. If he doesn’t have to think about his parents and what they’ve done then he won’t. He hates them. He hates them as much as-

“Shut up about fucking Deku!” Kirishima pulls Iida’s chair over for Bakugo, barely thinking about the gesture. As if on autopilot Bakugou slumps down into it without complaint. Aw, look at Mr.Tough stuff finally getting used to us kaminari thinks.

“Bakubro!!! Dude, come help us! You’re the only competent one amongst us…” Sero says before looking super thoughtful for a split second and continuing with, “Not that that’s saying a lot but still!”

“Tch! Why’d I waste my time on a shitty extra like you tape face, besides, being the weird-ass bitch that he is, Aizawa didn’t even tell us the shit that’ll be on the test!”

While his friends continued to gabber on, Denki stayed on that thought. It was really weird that he hadn’t mentioned what the test was about or why they had to take it, only that it was mandatory and would take the rest of the day. Something was definitely off. His mind wasn’t eased when they arrived at the building in the training area either. 

This wasn’t a quirk test (which was one of the other random details Aizawa saw fit to tell them) so why were they here? And when Denki saw principle freaking Nezu his nerves were most certainly not calmed. Whatever this was it was important enough for the principle to be there. Based off of Mina’s groan, Midoria's faint mumbling, and Koji's gulp, he wasn’t the only one who was shocked to see him.

The waiting room was monitored by a Midnight and Gun Head. The room was pretty plain overall. The walls were an eyesore white and three were lined with a long, smooth, rectangular block of wood that acted as a seat for the students. The last wall had two doors. Aizawa and Nezu went through one while students would go through the other. By now about half of class 1-A and 1-B we’re sitting around on a bench against the wall. 

Those who weren’t bored out of their mind from sitting for what must have been hours looked nervous as hell. Everyone who hadn’t taken the test yet still had no idea what was through those doors. Based on the view of the building from the outside, the waiting room probably took up a third of it. If he had to guess he’d say there were three other rooms. Four if you count the hallway-like room that was behind the test door. Unfortunately, Denki never got a good enough look at the inside of the door Aizawa and Nezu went in to be able to tell what was in there. 

However, when a new student goes into the door every fifteen or so minutes he gets a peek at what lies inside. And bitch it’s not much. The teacher must have taken a lot of precautions (which makes this all so much weirder) because whenever the door opens all he can see is a room the size of a closet with the same stupidly white walls (Cemetos must’ve just put this building up cause it looks crappy as heck. At least they had the decency to install wooden benches instead of concrete). In the room, there’s another door. Each time a new person enters Midnight, without fail, reminds them to close the door before walking into the next room. 

After that is the room where the test is taken which is probably about half the size of this room seeing as there was another room on the side with Nezu and Aizawa in it. The last third of the building was probably another waiting room for those done with the test. He came to this conclusion due to the fact that there were definitely two doors in front of him but only one exit on the other side of the building. That and the fact that they aren’t allowed to leave and no one who's left has come back to this room.

To add to the growing list of worry signs the doors are made of metal and Denki (unlike anyone else here he presumes) can tell the walls are extra insulated to block out any sound. If not for that he would have been able to hear what was going on. He had better hearing than anyone you’d come across because of his… training. Normally the extra installation would be nice seeing as it made his job easier. Of course, his targets rarely got a chance to scream but he could afford to be a bit sloppy when no one would hear them. Walls like that also helped with his stealth. Now though he hates these walls. He hears Ojiro suck in a breath as Midnight calls him over.

The sound brings him back to the land of the living and the next weird rule of the day: No one’s allowed to talk. And no electronics either (not that they were _supposed to_ have them in class). In fact, they weren’t allowed to bring anything besides their clothes with them. Kami would do anything for his phone right now (ANYTHING). All they have for entertainment are a pile of school assignments, homework, crossword puzzles, sudoku, and a bunch of other boring mind puzzles the teachers provided. Poor Midoriya had probably ripped through more than his whole class combined before being given a book. His rapid mumbling had caused too much noise apparently. There were a few books too but, being the kind-hearted person he is, he left them for his classmates to read. A decision he was now deeply regretting.

Well, maybe not. The people who were reading looked semi content. Still, he wished there was more he could do for his friends. They deserve everything and anything he could give them. He could go like this for days more without books if it meant they could be happy. Plus it wasn’t like boredom of pain was anything new to him. He’s sat in one place with even less to do on some missions. And those were on good days. Boredom was always a luxury compared to whatever his parents could be doing to him at that moment. Has he mentioned that he hates his parents yet? If not, fuck them. 

CHIP. That’s Midnight’s tablet. It’s about the size of a glue bottle without the cap and can be held in one hand. Or like a flattened out walkie talkie. It’s a device he’s seen before. It’s an old school gadget used for communication. Basically, a walkie talkie that can text on. It doesn’t use electricity so it’s pretty helpful for avoiding hackers. Plus its password locked. It has a greenish-gray screen with a black casing. You use a turntable knob that sticks out to type (kinda like those kids toys).

CHROMP Midnight types a reply in around ten seconds, as usual. Although it’s only been about eleven minutes since Ojiro went in. He must have finished early. Wait. Ojiro musta finished up. Which means-

“Kaminari, you’re up” shit. Ok, now he’s kinda nervous but not for the same reason as everyone else. Why would a pop-up test come out of nowhere (for the first year ever in the school’s history mind you) that has so many precautions and rules? Well anyone can tell, it’s not ‘cause they're about to go on vacation or to an amusement park. This can’t be good. He’ll have to be extra careful. At least he won’t have to stare at the same blank wall or his miserable friends.

“When you proceed to the other room you will, first and foremost, close the door. Failing to do so will result in a large penalty on the test that could lead to a fail. After you have closed, secured, and locked the door you will open the next. You will reenact this process with the next door and follow whatever instructions you receive from there, am I clear?”

“Clear as the day” he answered sarcastically. While he was nervous he was also bored as hell as he said earlier. Even if he’d be on the edge of his skin the whole time it’d be better than sitting in that hospital esk room waiting for the inevitable. Might as well get it over with right? While hearing Midnight speak in a serious tone quite amusing he could go without hearing the same line again, and again, and again.

“Good. You may proceed.”

The metal of the door’s a bit colder than he would have expected. And the door’s heavier than everyone made it look. Of course, he opens it with no struggle too but still, wait, this means his classmates must have improved. Even though he’s done nothing to help them with their training (like at all) he still feels a sense of pride to know they're getting stronger. Like when your kid improves their grades, you know that was all them but, gosh you're just so proud. Kaminari slaps his face a bit to get back in the right mindset. Gosh, you weirdo get yourself together! With a deep breath, he opens the door.

Some of his guesses were right about what would be behind the door. Others were very wrong. Oh so very wrong. The room is about half the size of the waiting room (like he guessed) but it feels so much bigger without being stuffed with other students. On the left wall (the side where the door Nezu and Aizawa went through was) there’s a mirror. Almost instantly he comes to the conclusion that they must be watching them. It’s dead obvious it’s double-sided after all (well at least for him it is. And why else would they have a mirror?). Makes sense. All that doesn’t throw Kaminari off, no. What throws him off is the table and chairs in the middle of the room.

And no they aren’t weird-ass chairs or tables or swings or anything that could make this whole thing any weirder. It’s what’s in them. Well, one of them. One chair waits open for him and in the other is a tired-looking purple-haired teen, _Shinsou_. Fuck. Fuckkkkkk. 

This whole scene practically screams _interrogation_ not test. That would explain why the students can’t come back after they’ve ‘taken the test, why all the rules were so strict, why they made Jiro go first and then proceeded to do everyone else based on alphabetical order (hearing quirk, duh), and it would explain why this hasn’t been done in the past before, why they hadn’t known about an important upcoming “test”. 

And on top of all that they foolproof their plan by having the (beautiful) brainwashing kid there to literally force everyone to tell the truth. While Kaminari _should_ have had nothing to fear (he hadn’t done anything recently that would have caused _this_ whole mess) all it would take is the wording of one question to be just right and he’d go off. Everyone would know the secret he’s been so desperately trying to hide all day and night. Damn.

“Come sit down already.” Aw Shinsou, as lovely as ever I see. In response, Kaminari puts on a big bright smile that most definitely doesn’t match any of the emotions he’s feeling right now, not that anyone can tell. 

“Oh, um yeah right my bad! Sorry for the pause, this is just totally not what I was expecting, you know? I had a fifty-fifty beat between it being an escape room and, just, like, a giant test!” He hears Shinsou lightly laugh under his breath to which he only smiles brighter. Actually, that might have been a scoff, who knows with him?

  
  


XXX (People do this during time skips right?)

  
  


If you asked him when he started seeing Shinsou he probably couldn’t tell you, it just sorta happened. To him, Shinsou was kinda like a watered-down version of himself. Everyone wanted him to be (or at least thought he was) a villain. Yet, even though all, the pain and denial he stuck to his dreams to become a hero. The main difference being Shinsou's pain was mental and his pain left him scars up and down his back (not to say he couldn’t benefit from a therapy visit or two too). 

The first time he really realized he was gravitating towards him was when Shinsou pulled him aside in the hall. He didn't really know what to suspect at the time but it sure as hell wasn't what he said.

“Ermumalublah blah blah so spit it out Pikachu, what’d you want?” Kaminari was only able to catch the end of what the purple-haired teen (Shinsou maybe? He looked kinda like the kind from the sports festival) was saying as he was caught in his own thoughts, the main one being why the heck was this kid pulling him aside in the hall? What’s he want? Did Kaminari mess up somewhere along the line? But he literally doesn’t talk to or know this kid so that’s probably not it, right?

“What?” Is all he can manage to say as he literally didn’t hear half of what the other kid said.

“I said I know you’ve been stalking me or some weird shit for the past three weeks. You know, people can notice when you're staring even if we’re not some smart ass hero kid. What the hell do you want? Did I piss off some of your _hero course_ friends by taking their place during the sports festival or something?”- Kaminari takes a mental note that this is indeed the brainwashing kid from the sports festival. - “I’m not going to apologize to their stuck up asses if that’s what you want.”

Woah. Ok, that’s a lot at once. Did he think everyone in the hero course was stuck up? He guessed he could understand why. With his old job, he met a lot of, strange people. A bunches them had a stick up there ass because of the “stupid” quirk they were (or weren’t) born with. Lotta the times they’d want revenge on people who hurt them for having a lame quirk. Or for taking a possibility from them because they had a better quirk for it. Sometimes they’d wanna get rid of the “lowly filth” who had lame quirks. Quirks seemed to affect people more than anyone would admit. 

“The heck? I’m not stalking you bedhead? And what’s with the nickname? Have you been hanging around Bakugou or something?” As soon as the last question leaves his mouth the tired teen’s - Shinsou’s - nose crinkles a bit before he purposely stops it in favor of a more neutral position. It’s as if the words themselves smell of a foul odor like they imply something rotten.

“God, you hero students just assume the world revolves around you and your friends, well it doesn’t. I called you Pikachu cause I don’t know your name dumbass. And the _hero course_ classes are on the other side of the school so you can’t get away with simply denying it. Even if you're not exactly stalking me I’ve caught you staring at or following me in the halls multiple times over the past few weeks. Just tell me what you want and leave me alone. You're gonna make us late to class.” 

Oh my lord, can you believe this kid? Ok, he would admit, thinking back on it, he did look really familiar. And he could recognize things about him that he probably shouldn’t have been able to without having had looked at him for a significant amount of time (or with the purpose of seeing said things). For example, he had a small mole on the upper half of the left side of his neck. And there was a patch of hair on the right side of his head near the back that was a bit lighter than the rest (and probably came with an AMAZING story about a bad hair day or a last-minute change of heart about bleaching his hair). He also, for the most part, keeps a neutral tone throughout the day but his eyes are a dead giveaway to how he actually feels.

He’d like to sum up this knowledge to the use of his odd skill set but what assassin needs to know about an old bad hair decision or mole? Ok so _maybe_ he had been watching this kid for some reason. Well, it’s not like he’s about to admit that (not trying to give off any creepy stalker vibes here :/). And even if he was watching him it wasn’t on _purpose_ ya know? It just sorta _happened_.

“First off, you're the one who's gonna make us late dude. I mean I’m not the one who just pulled us aside out nowhere. Second, lighten up a bit, I was just making a joke. You know, just cause I’m in the hero course doesn’t mean I’m a self-centered ass, We’ve gone through shit too.” At that Shinsou scoffed out a tch. At this point, all he needs to do is start yelling and dye his hair blond and there'll be two Bakugous. He internally giggled at the thought.

“And thirdly, as I said before, I’m not stalking you. Maybe you're the one who needs to get their head outta the mud. I’m over here because I like to stretch my legs a bit between classes, that’s all.” At that, the blond could see Shinsou’s face turn a light shade of pink before he turned it away. Cute.

“Hmph. I better not see your dumb ass following me again or I’ll report you to a teacher.” And with that, the purple mop of hair turned and walked away. Needless to say, they both were late that day.

“Oh. Look who decided to show up to class. You're ten minutes late. That’s gonna be detention. Take your seat so I can get back to class.” Just great. Of course, it just hadddd to be Mr. Aizawa’s class he was late too. Now his evening would have to pay. Ughhhhh.

Later, Denki found that detention wasn’t that bad after all. Aizawa had to take off for a hero mission so he got to go to normal detention with the other students (yes the hero course students suck enough that they get their own detention. Aizawa hosts it and makes them do extra hero training)! Plus, Mic was supposed to be watching them and he’s pretty chill. He’s heard for Mina that he even lets them talk!

That detention would be the second time the blond consciously came into contact with the insomniac. Like Mina had said, it seemed like everyone could be chatting. He came to this conclusion based on the loud group of students in the corner complaining about what they could be doing and what got them in here and yada yada yada. What really caught his eye was the purple-haired kid in the corner on his phone. He sat as far away from everyone else as he could. It was practically an invitation to say hi, don’t you think?

“Yo bed head! Didn’t think I’d to see you again so soon!” This loud hello seemed to startle the insomniac who probably wasn’t expecting to be bothered. The startle didn’t take long to morph into annoyance when he saw who was there. After a loud, audible sigh he spoke.

“What’d you want now hero kid? You know the fact that you knew where to find me kinda proves the whole stalker thing right?”

“Wrong! I just happened to also get detention today too! As a wise man once said, and I quote,” Kaminari made his voice drop to a low gruff sound to show he was speaking as someone else. It most definitely didn’t sound like Shinsou but that just adds to the effect :). “‘You hero students just assume the world revolves around you and your friends, well it doesn't'. So, why would I love the chance to watch you 24/7 that’s not the reason I’m here.” Without much thought, Shinsou turned away, whether it was to hide embarrassment or not he wasn’t sure.

“I’m sure whoever said that was a very wise man. I’m also sure that he aimed that comment at _hero course_ students, which I’m not one of. Shouldn’t you be with Mr. Aizawa? You know, having your special detention.” Shinsou said in a “leave me the fuck alone” kinda voice.

“Well, you're trying to become a hero so it’s basically the same thing! And Aizawa had to take off today so you're stuck with me! Isn’t that just lovely dear?” Kaminari tilted his head against his too clasped up hands and made a dramatic, cute puppy dog face while batting his eyelashes way too much.

“Hmph” Denki was about to take out his phone when the still looking away head spoke. “So, what’d your dumb ass do to get in here?” Oh my god. He was actually trying to hold a conversation! Little did he know that this meant the blonde would bother him for the next six months. Little did he know he’s let him.

“Oh you know, I was like ten minutes late to class. I wonder why? Oh, that’s right someone stopped me in the hall.” Kami takes a moment to emphasize this by staring hard at Shinsou who still seems to look the other way. He does make a sound though. Whether it was out of annoyance or amusement he’s not sure.

“Well Aizawa is strict as hell so you know, what about you?”

“I pissed off the teacher. We got into an argument about some assignment and here I am.”

“Woah wait like actually? You managed to piss off a teacher to the point of detention? Not gonna lie that’s kinda awesome, waita stick up for yourself man.”

“I wasn’t arguing with him about my assignment. He gave some random girl in my class a bad grade by mistake and refused to fix it even after we proved he was wrong. He was a sub, a terrible one at that.”

“Actually tho, even cooler dude! Superheroic! And of course, it’ll be a sub. Take a lesson from me babe and know that all subs suck. Unless they’re a sub for Aizawa. Anyone can make that class more bearable. Plus we get to have a normal TA when he’s not there, it’s the best!”

After that, they just sorta started noticing each other more you know. He’d talk with Shinsou in the hall, bother him after class, and sometimes he'd go sit with him at lunch (he tried to get him to sit with the self-proclaimed Baku squad at lunch once to which he actively refused). He loved Shinsou as much as he loved all his classmates. Shinsou was just *Waves hands dramatically* great. 

He was great to talk to. He was great to listen to. He had great, fluffy hair (even the slightly less fluffy, lighter piece in the back which he still hasn’t heard the story behind). He was great at the sports festival. He was great at scaring people at the haunted house during the school festival (he didn’t actually scare him but he didn’t need to know he pretended. Plus he would probably just think he was lying to get him to stop teasing him if he said so). He has great purple eyes that are easy to get lost in (until he realizes you're staring, that’s when you're screwed). He’s just great.

  
  


XXX (Am I doing this XXX thing right? You know what? This is my story so yeah, I am doing it right >p<)

  
  


This is why, when he sees this greatness sitting in front of him with stacks of paper and with the same communication deceive that midnight had he can’t help but feel some comfort yet more scared then he’s felt in his entire life. And that’s saying a LOT. Like a lot a lot. Have you met his parents?

“For this test, I’m going to ask you some questions. Depending on your answers the questions will vary. To ensure you answer truthfully you will be brainwashed. Do you consent to being brainwashed?”

It doesn’t even matter how he answers, the results are out of his control. If he says yes then he'll be brainwashed and have to hope he doesn’t ask any questions that‘ll give away his secret. If he says no he’s making himself look suspicious as hell and Shinsou could just brainwash him anyway. He could not talk but that would do nothing to help the suspension and he’d probably end up having to answer a question at some point. Which is why, as soon as he hears Shinsou say his no doubt 100% scripted line he immediately responses;

“Yes. Let’s do this thing!” He’ll just have to hope luck takes his side for once, but it never really does, does it? The “omg” feeling of being brainwashed is nothing new for him. He’s had Shinsou brainwash him a bunch of times for a bunch of different…things (🎶“very specific” “SHUT UP”🎶). He’s never minded it before. It feels sorta cool and relaxing. Like you dipped into an autumn breeze that’s just the right temperature. Or like you’ve just had a cup of herbal tea in the cold. It feels just right. He’s always liked being able to give someone else complete control while still feeling safe. He doesn’t think he’d be able to do that with anyone but Shinsou. 

He normally thinks Shinsou’s brainwashing is great. But right now, not having any control over what he says makes him feel sorta sick. Like the gross warm you feel when you get the flu. Or when you have a cup of too sweet hot cocoa in the summer. It feels so un-Shinsou like. So unsafe and unsure. He hates it.

Shinsou looks down at the mountain of papers on the desk. There’s one stack of paper stapled together in the center of the desk. Due to the creases in the stapled corner and the used bend the paper has to it, he concludes that this must be the main set of questions he’s supposed to answer. The rest of the papers, well, he just hopes he won’t have to find out what they hold.

“What is your name?”

“Denki Kaminari.” An easy question at the start. They probably don’t expect much from it but it’s good to be 100% sure they have the right person. It’s a good way to test the water. 

“What school do you go to?”

“UA high school.”

“What are your future career plans?”

“I haven’t planned out too much but I want to become a hero. To help people who need it.” So far, Shinsou looks like he wants to die. Nothing out of the usual. He “wants to die” cause of his boredom and his current state of not sleeping for two nights straight (which is considered good for Shinsou actually. The teachers probably made him sleep a bit) (don’t ask how he knows Shinsou’s sleep schedule). He answers every question he throws at him in a normal sense. It’s relieving almost. Until, of course, it’s not. Until all the fear he’s built up decides to make use of its self and roam free. 

“Have you recently been in contact with the league of villains?”

“Besides them breaking into the training camp, no.”

“Have you given the league of villains any information?”

“No, I haven’t given the league of villains any information.” That’s definitely… stretching the truth. He’s stolen a lot of information and done a lot of jobs (and when he says a lot he means a lot) for every member of the league of villains. His parents worked with them more than any other underground group, subsequently making him do the same. When he worked for them, however, they hadn’t been called the league of villains. They hadn’t even all been in a group yet! Tomura and Kurogiri of course had been but who knows what the hell Dabi was up to and Toga worked for his parents’ organization back then.

“Have you worked with the league of villains?”

“No.”

“Have you recently been in contact with a member league of villains?”

“No, besides the times they tried to attack us.” Ah, so this is why the questioning takes so long. They don’t miss any technicalities. Good for UA. For him? Well. Good for UA.

“Have you ever given any information to a member of the league of villains?”

“Yes.” Shinsou flinches a bit at the out of the ordinary answer. He’s probably had to listen to the words no for hours on end now yet hearing something different, especially from Denki of all people, brings him no joy. Besides a flick he shows no sign of distraught, not yet. If anything he seems confused. Fuck brainwashing, wait, no, fuck this.

He looks up at the mirror behind the blond (very much double sided) as if an answer will be looking back at him, as he does so his communication device beeps. A new stack of paper is taken and the game begins.

“Who did you give information to in the league of villains?”

“I’m not quite sure who I have and haven’t talked to there. I know for a fact I’ve given information to Toga, Tomura, and Kirogiri.”

“When did you give them this Information.” Shinsou says more like a demand then a question. Not that it matters with his quirk active.

“I can’t exactly say when.”

“Why.” Poor Shinsou is trying so hard to keep his composure but he can still sense his teeth pulling together to stop from yelling. Can you smell that? Oh, it’s shit. Denki thinks he’s shit cause he sure feels like it. Literally shit (and that’s on period love).

“I didn’t give them the information at the same time and I have given them multiple pieces of information.” Shinsou flips some pages in the new paper stack.

“Was the Information about UA?” 

“No.” He flips to a new page.

“Did this information go towards hurting people or heroes?” 

“I’m not sure.” He flips to a new page.

“On how many occasions did you give them information?”

“I’m not sure, more than I could count. Not that I’ve ever tried.” Shinsou seems about ready to pop, to boil over, to explode. He seems like he’s about to release something. Like he wants to say something that he won’t be able to take back. Then he takes a long, deep breath, a few actually, and tries to calm down, to process. He rubs the fleshy part of his nose that lies between his eyes. The blond feels bad. For giving Shinsou a headache. For releasing enough information that his cover will likely be blown. For failing to hide after so long. For Shinsou. For far too many reasons to name. 

Shinsou takes one more breath before continuing. Not quite as calm yet not quite as bored as at the start. He looks as if he’s at the top of a drop tower waiting for it to fall.

“Did you, hmm. Did you do anything else for them?”

“Yes.” He hates this. He hates his neutral toned meleconly voice. He hates how the truth slides off his tongue easier than his lies ever could. He hates how they leave a metal taste in his mouth like blood. How lies come out like butter but the truth leaves a sandpaper scrape. He feels helpless. Like a deer in headlights. 

“What did you do?”

“I’ve done a lot of things for them. I typically worked wherever they hired me.”

“Give me the most common examples.”

“This most common jobs were smuggling substances, finding information, and assassinations. That’s what I did the most probably.” Shinsou straight up looks like he’s going to be sick. He visibly moves back and goes to cover his mouth. As if a hand could hold back whatever he feels. It’s hard for even Kaminari to trace what he might be feeling. He doubts Shinsou’s himself can tell. He looks sick. Sick is seeping from his bones. He looks like he sucker punched himself and everyone in the room while still being the victim of the pain. He looks like a lion, mouth stained with blood after an attack, cowering in fear. He looks sick from the world. 

After a while he snaps out of it when the comunction device goes off. Wherever it says must bring him some comfort cause his shoulders relax and his cauldron of different emotions shift to something more clear. He aggressively types something back and awaits another bing. After reading it he turns to Denki. It’s almost funny how sad he looks, how fast his emotions change before returning to anger. He wouldn’t be surprised if this is the most emotion Shinsou’s let himself show for a while. It’s the most he’s seen after all. The most raw, untainted, and unhidden emotion. “Stay there. Don’t even think about moving.” 

Shinsou goes off somewhere behind Denki. He’d look if he could but that’s not his fate. He doesn’t hear a door move but instead hears what seems like a crumble of shifting of material. Cementos must have been behind the double sided mirror too. He’s probably one of the reasons this whole place is so plain. After a bit more shifting there’s quiet, a killing quiet.

After minutes that feel like hours that feel like days that feel like seconds that feel like mouths he hears the crumbling like shifting of cement. He hears Shinsou’s foot steps. And then he sees Shinsou. He has a new stack of papers and looks almost not terrible. They must’ve had a “regroup and don’t feel like complete shit party”. Shinsou settles down in the chair across from him before he starts up again.

“Do you still do jobs the the league of villains?”

“No.”

“Are you the UA traitor?”

“No, I don’t think so.” How ironic. They haven’t even found what they’ve been looking for yet Kaminari stuck spitting out all his secrets. This means that one of his friends is a traitor. Damn. If he wasn’t being brainwashed he’d probably run away. Or be sick. As sick as Shinsou looked (or looks). Instead he probably looks neutral and zoned out. One of his _friends,_ one of the few people who have ever treated him like an acually fucking human being and not a automatic gun, was trying to pull him back into his old life. 

He was the only one who knew why the league kept attacking. They weren’t just weird sickos who wanted to hurt kids. They wanted _him_ back. His parents had a huge bounty on his head after all. Whether they wanted the money or his skills as the best assassin to ever exist he wasn’t sure. The thought that any of these supposedly kind people could have been helping with that, that he wasn’t the only one who knew the leagues true purposes, hurt _so so so_ much.

He couldn’t decide if he was grateful for not being able to express his grief or not. It felt awful, like screaming for hours with no voice or running from a monster and getting nowhere but he was unsure what would happen if he could show his grief. How loud would he yell? When would he stop running?

“Have you done ‘jobs’ for people outside of the league?” When he says jobs his nose twitches up a bit. It’s as if the word itself smells of what it represents.

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“I’m not sure, a lot.”

“How long were you doing these- ‘jobs’? Give me the time frame and the start and end dates.”

“I did them for around eight years full time and twelve years on and off. The first four years of my life were mostly training with some jobs here and there. After that it got more serious and full time. When I was twelve I ran away and stopped for the most part. I had to do one or two more jobs to survive after that.” As if a new fresh wound is taken off, Shinsou once again looks surprised.

“You did this stuff when you were a kid?”

“Yes.” After literally shaking off his shock and a faint whisper of the word “damn” under his breath he continues.

“Were you working on your own?”

“No.”

“Who were you working with?”

“My parents and the rest of their organization.” Shinsou’s eyebrows furrow towards the center of his face as if a magnet was placed there to attract them.

“Did you work with them and do these ‘jobs’ willingly?”

“No.”

“At that Shinsou’s shoulders drop down becoming slightly less tense and he breathes out a sharp breath neither of them knew he was holding. Yet his eyebrows furrow deeper. By now they probably realize he’s not the so-called “UA trader” yet they probably have way too many questions then they can ask. If he could speak he’d just tell them what they need to know. Of course he doesn’t want to and of course it will cause him nearly as much pain as his parents (actually maybe not) did but it’s faster than whatever _this_ is.

“Did- did your parents make you do all _that_?”

“Yes.” Shinsou looks like he wants to punch someone (probably his parents) but he also looks sorta down now. Like a poisonous wilted flower. He’s always been standing so tall and bright. He’s a lavador with such staggering petals. So unfit for someone like Denki or so he thinks. He can hear him mumble a, “fucking shit” under his breath. With that last question the - very obviously not getting enough sleep (or wearing some weird eye shadow) - teen abandoned whatever script he was meant to read. And he doesn’t look like he’s about to take it back.

“Denki, did… did they hurt you?” Shinsou’s tone today has been a fire. It was small and dim at the start only to have the flames steadily grow as the situation demanded. However, after a while, a fire dies. It loses its energy and whatever furiery may have been driving it. It crumbles and fades. 

“Yes.”

And with that the final log collapses. The flower petals fall. The bomb drops. If you could die from pure will power Kaminari suspects that would be the moment that does the other boy in. He slams his hands on the table so fast that even his chair is taken back. He suspects he’d fall back or at least flinch too if he could (wow, he’s envious of a fucking chair). After a second of Shinsou relying on the table to not fall himself he turns around. He has his face crumpled up in his hand and breathes like he can only take one breath after running a mile. He rubs between his eyes as if he could pull the magnet out that’s attracting his eyebrows there. 

“I can’t deal with this shit. This isn’t even what we were looking for and I- Kami are you ok? I mean damn. Fuck. Pikachu why didn’t you- I. Shit. I- I can’t do this right now.” He speaks more like he’s talking to himself then to him. And like he has more words then he can say and they keep interrupting each other. Fighting for his attention.

Something in Shinsou’s eyes flickers and he feels his shoulder fall. He _moves_ his shoulders. Being let out of his hold is like the moment the floor falls out from under your feet on those extra thrilling water slides. The aftermath is normally similar too. This time though, all he can feel is the bumps in the slide scraping against his back as he begins to fall for who knows how long. 

His shoulders are shaking and his face starts to feel _wet_. Is he crying? But he never cries. Not when he realized he wasn’t living how most people live, not when he had to kill genuinely innocent people, not when he had holes drilled in his stomach by his parents, not when they dropped him in the middle of a blizzard for no reason, not ever. But here he is. With tears making his shirt change colors and stick to his skin. This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. He’s speand soooo much time preventing this it can’t fall apart now. Nonononono. It can’t. It’s not fair. Damn it!

He didn’t know what he was expecting but it certainly wasn’t _this_ . What was he doing? He had to explain himself or come up with a suitable lie or at least say _something_. He had to say something. He just- he couldn’t. Shinsou had taken all of the words from him and left him with nothing. Eye bags took all his words until you could hear the words fighting each other for space in the other boy's brain. Until he had too many words to mix with his own. He took his words and left him with none. With nothing to say. But what would he even say, “Hi yeah I killed a bunch of people but please don’t kick me out?” yeah that wasn’t happening.

He can vaguely remember Shinsou coming up to him after he started crying. He can remember his twisted face crying too although he couldn’t understand why. He could remember Cementos opening the wall to let them both in. He can remember the teachers talking in hushed tones (why would they bother? It’s not like he’ll be able to clearly hear them through all his thoughts and sobs) in the back and the CHIP and CHOMP’s of the communication devices going off. 

He can remember the grounding hand on his leg. Shinsou’s brain was probably short circuiting worse than he pretended his brain did after “overusing” his quirk. If he was levels above everyone else it would be WAY too suspicious. Not that that matters now cause they know they know they know they know. Fuck. Fuck oh shit oh fuck oh shit. Nononono this can’t be real.

All his classmates are going to hate him. And if they don’t they _should_ . He’s killed people. They want to save people. He could never save enough people to make up for all the lives he’s taken. He never thought or cared about it too much cause it wasn’t like he had a choice but he _did_ . He could have done _something_.

This whole thing makes him feel so stupid! This is so fuck up! I mean his life already sucks so why did they do this to him! Fuck you karma. He wants to scream at karma, and at his classmates (especially who ever the fuck the traitor was) and his teachers for fucking up his whole god damn plan! He just, Aughrrra! This is fucked up! Fuck all this! If the damn teachers didn’t push him for answers that had absolutely _nothing_ to do with the whole traitor thing he would be fine! If his class wasn’t so good they’d forgive him, they won’t. Those assholes will abandon him and he’ll have to go back to the streets, or worse, his fucking parents. If his parents didn’t fuck him up to start none of this would be fucking happening! He- he, he really wants to be mad but he just can’t. He knows being mad at his classmates and teachers (his parents deserve the anger tho) is stupid, they’ve done nothing wrong. But still he-

He feels Shinsou's hand squeeze his leg. Damn he’s getting rusty. He must have let even more of a reaction slip then he thought. He’ll have to work on that. Not that it matters. Cause they know they know they- no. He needs to stop thinking like this. It’s not what’s helpful right now. He wants to think about something, _anything,_ other than that but he can’t. So he just focuses on the weight of Shinsou’s hand.

It’s never felt heavier. He knows it’s impossible that it could have changed weight or even weigh as much as it feels like it does but he lets himself believe that it has and it does. They’ve taken a lot of time. And he looks like literal shit. Half his class probably will think he’s the traitor. The other half probably thinks he’s failing some weird ass test. He always played dumb after all. 

Midoria’s probably writing out some theory about the test and it’s correlation to time as they speak. He can see why people ship him with the other theorist in the class now. At some point the teachers bring everyone lunch while they discuss how they’ll be able to test the rest of the students. Shinsou’s obviously too emotionally drained to continue but he insists he can if needed.

He probably was using this as a way to try and get into the hero course. Of course Denki had to go and ruin that for him. Can’t he get anything right? Apparently not. The teachers shove the kids that haven’t taken the test yet in the 1-B dorms and shove the other students into 1-A. The people who finished the test probably think that they found the traitor seeing as _one person_ seemed to take so long. Maybe they think he had an accomplice and that’s why they’re still gonna test everyone else? 

God the thought of losing two friends probably would kill them. Good bless their pure souls. Not his. The teachers let the two boys camp out in the makeshift room until kaminari gets his shit together (not to say he won’t look like shit. There’s probably nothing he'll be able to do about that). They probably also had them stay so none of the non-tested kids will see Shinsou. He’s a dead giveaway to this whole thing being a bit more than a test. 

They just sit there feeling the shake of each other's sobs. Then they just feel the comfort of the others presence when they run out of tears. To his surprise Shinsou seems to run out of tears first. He must’ve had so many more tears from saving them all up all these years. That has to be it, right? He has his head on Shinsou’s shoulder and Shinsou has his head on him (on his head). Both boys lost track of time way too long ago. 

Shinsou must get bored of swimming in his thoughts (or maybe he stops cause he’s afraid of drowning from exhaustion) cause he speaks. In a soothingly low voice he asks, “Hey, Pikachu, are you ok?” Kaminari almost thinks he’ll start crying again at the question. The answer is pretty damn obvious, like one of those questions you ask even when you know the answer just to get a better sense of the other person, to see if they’ll tell the truth. Once he finds his voice he almost wants to say, “yeah I’m fine why wouldn’t I be” out of instinct but he hates lying to his friends. It feels weird not too but, if we’re being honest, this all feels weird.

“I mean, I’ve been better?” He almost flinches (almost) when he hears his voice. It sounds raspy and worn out. It sounds like it will detached from him at any moment, like he’s losing it. 

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No, not really…” They both talk quietly but for different reasons. Shinsou speaks in a quiet, comforting voice. He, on the other hand, doesn’t mean to talk quietly but it’s all the noise the loud blond can seem to muster right now.

“We should probably get going soon. We’ve been here a while.”

“Yeah probably …” But do we really have to, he wanted to say. Although if he had any say they’d stay here forever. Stay here in a state of not quite ok but not falling apart. Having tension and comfort in the air. Holding on to the little pieces of dignity and friendship he still has. To the little bits of his past that haven’t been revealed. 

If he goes back he’ll have to see his friends. They know something's up. They’ll hate him. It’s a miracle Shinsou hasn’t left him yet. Damn it why does he have to be such a good person! He already knows there’s no change he’s sleeping tonight but he just feels so tired. Too tired to move. Too tired to deal with this, to deal with what his friends will say. 

“You ready to go than?” Shinsou says in his ever so cautious voice after a moment more.

“Not really” Kaminari can feel his voice getting closer to normal the more it’s used. He spoke a bit louder and seemed to laugh over his own words. Not the natural laugh that floods out of your mouth no matter how strong of a dam you’ve built. The laugh that can brighten a room or turn someone pink. No, this is the sort of laugh that comes when you can no longer cry. When you want to reach back to normal but can’t quite get it right.

“Tell me when you're ready. I’ll wait.” Shinsou says before letting the weight of his head relax further into the other boy's hair. He still has his hand on his leg too. The combination of both are an almost calm, grounding weight. Normally he has a great sense of time, a great sense of things in general, but he let that drift away from him earlier. He sorta wished he was paying attention though. It’s probably getting pretty late, Shinsou must be getting hungry right?

And he can’t hold him here too long, he still has to question more students tomorrow. If he knew the time he could soak out as much of this as possible and plan it so that Shinsou could still be well prepared for tomorrow. Yet once you let something drift away it moves on it’s own. Whatever senses he had have gone who knows how far and neither of them have a watch. This is probably a big moment for Shinsou. If he finds the traitor not only is he doing something heroic that will prove his worth but he’ll be freeing up a spot in the hero course. It’s a perfect set up. He won’t ruin any more of this for him.

So, Kaminari reluctantly moves his head so he’s facing Shinsou’s neck rather than the cement wall and says; “It is getting pretty late huh? I guess we should probably head to the dorms then …” At the last word he trails off. _Dorms_. Shinsou has his own dorm. He knows it’s selfish and that he doesn’t deserve to have him here but he wants him to stay. He doesn’t have the energy to explain himself like he thought he would. He can’t. Shinsou understands though, he knows he’s not the traitor (he’s so much worse). It would hurt to have him go. He must notice the blonds discomfort because he then says;

“If you're ready then we can head back to the _dorm_.” He shoves out a sad laugh before saying; “Well I don’t think I’ll ever be quite ready ya know? But now‘s good as ever…”

The insomnia makes a pleased noise before they both get up from their curled up position. Their bones feel tired and a bit sore from being unused. Kaminari rolls his head around and hears it crack. They both take a moment to stretch out their arms and legs too. Kaminari thinks his head feels much colder without the other boy’s head on top of it. He feels like he could float away without the weight. 

It’s already getting dark by the time they get there. Almost all the pros from the school are standing by and in the dorms to make sure no one gets in or out (the traitor probably can get an idea of what’s up seeing as they know who Kaminari is and that he took forever in the “test” room. Depending on who it is and how smart they are he could have really screwed this up). Shinsou gives a nod to Midnight as they pass her to enter the 1-A dorms. She responds with a small smile and quiet nod of her own. 

If any luck shines on him today it must be the fact that he gets to stay in the 1-A dorms rather than 1-B. There are sleeping mats spread out on the floor accompanied by a bunch for 1-B students in what looks like an old version of the UA gym uniforms for pajamas. They have black, nylon shorts with a gold UA on the bottom corner of the left leg. They also have dark yellow-ish grey tee shirts with a more complex UA symbol and writing in the top right corner. The symbol has an outline of a circle with a horizontal line cutting through it. There’s writing on it but he doesn’t have the energy to read it.

Some students seem a bit uncomfortable with it but most seem to be used to them by now. If anything they look like they’re having a huge sleepover. When they hear the door open their attention is Immediately grabbed by it. Kaminari usually doesn’t mind being the center of attention but today has been anything from usual am I right. When people see him and Shinsou they connect some dots and react differently. Some people look sad, others look disgusted, a few are mad, and the rest are a unique mix of the three.

Kaminari doesn’t have the energy to throw them a smile or show them they’re wrong cause whatever idea they have probably isn’t too off. Instead he keeps his head down and heads towards his room with Shinsou glaring at whoever he can make eye contact with (which wasn’t too hard seeing as everyone was looking at them). This seemed to confuse everyone a bit but made them turn away nonetheless. Kaminari could tell when they were out of eye shot due to the large amount of whispers that followed. He could hear them easily but choose not to listen.

Instead he focuses on getting to his room, closing the door, and settling down on the bed with Shinsou. Thinking about it he should probably have two things on his lucky things list (a lot less than the list of unlucky things). He’s grateful Shinsou hasn’t gone full detective mom mode yet. He probably has more questions than he could ask but he’s staying quiet for him. He knows he’ll have to answer all of the questions eventually but for now he’ll be grateful for the delay.

Don’t get him wrong he still feels like literal dog shit that has been stepped on and squashed around but he doesn’t feel as bad as earlier. Not good, but not as bad. He and Shinsou lie in the quite in his bed and, as he thinks over the days events, he can’t help but think, “what the actual fuck.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Yeah. Feel free to leave a comment (or don’t, live your best life) with opinions or grammar errors. I hope y’all liked it. If you’re here from the Dark Side of The Sun (somehow) I hope you use this as a coping method until the work is complete (cause we need to be patient with the good shit, I’m just a snack to keep you crazy kids from eating the ice cream before we put the cherry on top). I wasn’t planning on it but if you guys want a part two with more fluff or comfort or reactions or something then comment. Well that’s all I have to say. Stay safe happy, healthy and don’t forget to walk some you lazy bum (your legs will love you for it)!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I did a part two and, like the first one, didn't feel like reading over it so you can deal or read over it for me <3\. In all seriousness I'm glad people liked it enough to want a part two! I know you see this on everything but all the comments and kudos made me really happy (and oddly surprised?) so thank you all so much! So ummmmm... here's some something (fun fact: I make this on a google doc labeled "This is definitely something" lol). Do with it what you must :)

“So he's an ex-villain?” Yamada asked no one in particular. 

“I guess you could call it that.” Yagi responded.

“God I had prepared to find out one of the students was a villain—“

“Ex-villain” Yamada corrected under his breath.

“—but now two? Damn… do we need better background checks?” Nemuri asked, all thought it felt more like a suggestion.

All the teachers that weren’t at the dorms or on patrol were huddled together in the staff room talking out this “unforeseen difficulty”. Currently the room contained Hizashi Yamada (Present mic), Nemuri Kayama (Midnight), principal Nezu (that scary smart mouse guy that runs the school), Ken Ishiyama (Cementoss), Toshinori Yagi (All small might) , Sekijiro Kan (Vlad king), and yours truly. Aizawa was lying on the couch in his sleeping bag as he watched his standing coworkers talk the day out. 

Don’t get me wrong, Aizawa really cared. Seeing the one person in the class that he actually thought might be incapable of crying (hey, it could have been a side effect of his quirk. Electricity could be used to send shock waves to the endorphins in the brain to stimulate happiness or release dopamine. That would be highly dangerous to try on it’s own but maybe, just maybe, it was a side effect of his quirk. Like the whole dumb thing you know? Maybe it was part of that process because he never seemed sad when he overworked himself. It seemed like happiness was engraved into his very being. Maybe. But no.) upset had been extremely unsettling. 

As a hero he wanted to step in and help the boy. But as a hero you cannot have a soft heart for the villains. Someone in UA was a traitor. They had to figure who it was and the result would burn no matter the source of the flame. So he let them continue the integration. He let two future hero’s crumble like a dying fire in front of his eyes. And he did nothing.

He had some previous suspension towards Kaminari in general: The way the boy’s footsteps never made a sound; the sharp look that would form in his eyes during a real battle; the way he alway seemed to have energy after training even though he seemed way too tired to jump back moments before; the weird moments where he would perform a move miles above everyone else. 

It shouldn’t have feel like being pushed into cold water, he had eased himself into doubt about the boy and his past, yet dipping a toe into water isn’t going to do much for the impact on the rest of your body.

He had known Kaminari was suspicious but he had no idea the leave of trauma this suspicion had come from. If Kaminari used to be a puzzling mystery who knows what he is now.

“I don’t think background checks are the main problem here but I shall consider. Our system is already incredibly advanced and full proof compared to other schools. Compared to some police operations as well” Nezu spoke. 

“Yet for an advanced system a villain—“

“Ex-villain” Yamada corrected 

“An ex-villain and a traitor were able to make their way into our midst” Ken added. 

“I must agree that it’s quite unsettling. We’ll need to do something about it in the future but we have enough problems on our hands as is right now” Sekijiro said before continuing. “Once the press finds out about this they’ll be all over us all over again. Class 1-A has far too much attention as is but with this?!? Hell the press will never let us sleep till we respond! On top of that the students will be understably upset and unsettled. Two of their classmates are gonna be arrested for god sakes!” Sekijiro half yelled. 

Everyone muttered their agreements as he spoke but Yamada seemed on edge at the last line. “What do you mean two arrests? The traitor will be behind bars for sure but Kaminari?”

“You heard what he said, he’s stolen things and information. He killed people, he’s a murder! I’m just as upset about this revaluation as you but, as a hero, we have to do our job!” Sekijiro retorted.

With the right quirk you could see the aura of the room shift to a scratchy red as the tension grows larger. All the teachers seemed unnerved and on the edge of no longer having a professional meeting. Aizawa was just tired. He had been prepared for the wrong confession like preparing for the wrong character's death. He was ready for a reveal, just not this one.

And with the reveal of another traitor looming over their shoulders he- he was just tried. Great. Now he had another problem child to add to his list. Soon he’d be able to use it as the attendance chart. Isn’t that ducking sweal.

“Kan! Don’t use such strong words! We know very little about what was going on. We should probably ask him more questions, without the boy's quirk preferably.” Nemuri said.

“I agree that the boy will need more questioning but we shouldn’t sugar coat his actions because we were close to him as his teachers.” Ken commented.

“We aren’t sugar coating anything, we’re just doing our jobs. As hero’s we don’t arrest people, we keep them safe! You saw what Kaminari said, he was born into it. We failed to save him! He was just doing what he had too to stay alive!” Yamada countered.

“Are you implying that him killing people was self defense!?!” 

“If someone held a gun to your head and told you to kill another or they’d shoot then you're left with no choice!”

“If he had the ability to kill others he could have escaped or killed his captors instead! That would be self defense!”

“He was a KID KAN, A FUCKING KID! Those were his parents! And you heard him say they had a whole organization behind them? He was fucking trapped! And he did escape eventually!”

“KIDS CAN STILL KILL PEOPLE! Families have suffered because of him! They'll want justice, child or not! Not only did he kill people but he did it commonly! HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU EXPLAIN THAT TO THE PRESS!?!”

Vlad king and Present mic yelled back and forth (lucky Yamada hasn’t accidentally activated his quirk yet. That’s always a risk when he gets into yelling fights. He has worse control when he’s emotional). The two heroes battled each other with the same energy they would a villain. 

Aizawa could see the faces morph as they lost whatever Professionalism had been holding them together. Aizawa moved slightly to rub his check against the couch. A drop of spit had lanes on him during one shout or another.

Yagi and Nemuri both looked upset, as if they wanted to break up a street fight. Yet they couldn’t do so with physical force like they were used to and they had little experience stopping people they knew. Guess that was a trend now, having to stop people they knew. The only way to easily stop the fight would be variably but it would be difficult to do so without taking sides. 

So the room was silent for a second or two. Two heroes looked ready to fight, two looked conflicted and everyone was soaked in yells. Aizawa wanted to respond, to say something in his student’s defense. Yet quiet is sometimes the best defense you can have. He would have a biased view and, if it wasn’t Kaminari they were talking about, he could understand both Kan and Yamada.

Yamada was upset. He didn’t need to defend Aizawa like he was. Aizawa knee that’s all it was. He cared for the student in question but not he’d put being a hero first. And before being a hero he’d put his friends. It was a selfish line of importance but everyone needs to indulge now and then to stay sane. He knew Yamada was only defending him to do what he thought was right but he didn’t need his help. Or his pity. He needed to be a hero. Hell that was literally his job!

Kan opened his mouth to yell again but was cut off as easily as a napkin soaking up a spilling drink. Spilled tea to be exact.

“Explain what’s to the press?” Nezu spoke out, drawing everyone’s attention to him solely, reminding the room of his presence.

“There has been no official report, police filing, or lick of evidence that would warrant a press report” 

“What are you suggesting Nezu? That we don’t arrest him?” Ken Ishiyama asked in a bewildered, almost angry tone.

“We don't arrest people Ken, the police do. As of now the police have no reason to arrest Kaminari, am I correct?”

“We were recording their conversation, remember? We bugged the room, we have proof.” Ken said with a bit less bewilderment and a bit more sternness scrapping at the edge.

“What good would turning him in be now? The boy isn’t a threat and we have too little information on his past to make a decision at the moment. He may have been born to villains but no one is inherently evil. If he was able to work as a villain for sometime he will have experience we can never hope to obtain; knowledge on how the underground works. Plus, if he was able to complete such missions, he probably has valuable combat skills that would be highly suitable for hero work. It’s not our job as his teachers to investigate him. We are simply here to help him accomplish his goals of becoming a hero. He has done nothing against the school that would call for our actions. And, for what I’ve seen of him, I have reason to believe the boy legitimately wants to be a hero. I may not be that close to him but I’m sure his home room teacher is. Am I correct in my assumptions about him Aizawa?”

With that the invisible pencil of talking was passed to Aizawa. Actually, I’d say it was thrown at him for he would never have except it had he had the choice. All eyes drift to him. He notices as a few gain wait at the sight of him, dropping a bit. He makes a point to sigh out tiredly before speaking. He does bother to move from his lying position either.

“Honestly, while I was suspicious of the boy, I doubt he could do anything terribly wrong. He treats his classmates with true emotions, nothing that could be plastered on or fake. I’m not saying he should be completely let off, just that he hasn’t signs of misdirection from the path of becoming a hero.”

The others hum in thought, agreement from some, acknowledgement from others. “ As of now I’ll take it that we’re all in agreement. If any further complications come up let me know. We are to do our jobs as the boys' teachers, remember that.” Nezu pauses to add importance to his word. To add an importance throughout the power of silence. An importance that hangs in the air and stretches the words out. “On that note, I believe someone should check on the boy.” Nezu says before looking at the pitch black widow. “Well, maybe we should wait till the morning. Let him try to get whatever sleep he can”

XXX

It was difficult to word what was happening. Not necessarily because of the pure chaos that is him but because of the need of description. Most emotions are named after being felt over and over, till they’re as memorized as the words. What he was feeling now most certainly didn’t fit that definition. He was in his body but he didn’t feel like himself, like it was his body. The body felt too hollow. Like someone turned a facet and poured out everything inside along with his tears and his lies. 

He had nothing left, he was just there. It was nearly dawn now evident by the light causing the shadow of his blinds to appear on the wall. He had been watching the wall for a while now. The creamy grey of the wall, the framed shirt and dart board just out of view, and, now, the outline of his curtains and bits of sun.

He was awake but not at the same time. Or at least it felt like it. He heard when shinsou believed him to be asleep and slowly (like VERY slowly) and quietly (a quiet only he that only he could hear) left the room. When the only weight keeping him from floating away, keeping the last bit of his insides from dripping away from him, left. He heard when the door opened again and a man, probably about 180 centimeters, came in. He didn’t turn or move or, well, anything.

He heard the man (or woman, he didn't have enough energy to figure out) take a seat in his desk chair and wait. That’s all he did. Wait. Did he know he was awake? Who cares. So there they were, him staring and the man waiting. Staring and waiting and staring and waiting and staring and waiting. Him waiting for the man to do something and the man staring at him. 

Finally the man decided to break the silence. Maybe he realised he wasn’t going to talk. How long had he been waiting anyway? Long enough that the light had gotten much brighter and that movements could be heard outside.

“You're not getting expelled” was all he said. Now, he was shocked, but he didn’t have the energy, the anything, to respond. And, judging from the other man’s voice (most likely a man, he had a deep voice. Normally he’d know who it was by now, heck, anyone would! But this isn’t anyones normal, not even his) he was almost as tired as him.

After what was probably a long pause for long pauses he flipped on his bed. Aizawa was sitting in his chair. Waiting and staring at him. After another longer-than-normal-long-pauses pause he found the little anything in him and used it to speak. “Why?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was debating making this chapter longer or uploading it sooner (I went with the latter), what you guys like more? The first chapter was way longer but I spent more time on it too. I'll probably have one or two more chapters in this work and was looking for an opinion so, any preferences? Stay safe y'all and don't forget to eat a fruit or veggie every now and then (they miss you)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruh. I'm alive.

Bruh. What. The Fuck. No like actually, what the fuck. Ok. okokokokok. “This is FINE. 100%. Just swell” Shinso muttered to himself under his breath. He had… a long day to say the least. The air had an annoying dampness to it that he would have likely overlooked any other day. It lingered on his neck and swam through his hair attracting it like a static balloon would. Lucky for him, Gun Head, who had been brought in from the city for extra security, was the one escorting him back. It’s not like he’d be able to rest easy but that doesn’t mean he wishes more pain upon himself. He’s done more talking today than he has for at least three years and look where that got him! So yeah, no thank you to small talk.

He could see the 1-C dorms in the distance but made no move to quicken his pace. He had no reason to rush. No one he was looking forward to seeing, talking with, or texting. He didn’t want to savor the moment by any means. He just didn't care if it ended cause how could it get better? 

Sometimes he wonders how it would feel to be brainwashed. It probably feels like a whipping autumn breeze, frigid and unforgiving. Or like bruins tea with eighteen sugar cups being forced down your throat mid-July. Your very soul is ripped from your being as someone else takes over. You're left helpless to whatever words leave your lips. Someone else takes over and you watch like a ghost. Being brainwashed must feel like being dead.

All he can do is make people feel dead. Fuck. I mean, it’s not like anyone hasn't told him before. Plenty of people had in fact. He just chose not to listen. Most of the time. Confirmation bias can be a bitch. A hot distracting one at that. It feels wrong but you love to look at what it tells you with the hope that maybe it’s right.

It’s one of the things that would keep him up at night. Looking for stories of people like him that weren’t villains. He’d found a few. Looking at those rather than the eighty articles above them made him feel, I dunno know, normal? That was stupid wasn’t it? “Puppet Master strikes Again!” “Two Murdered Hostages Were Murdered by Mindjack During A Robbery” “MasterMind, a Brainwashing Villain Involved in Human Trafficking, Was Arrested After Refusing to Pay for a Glass Bottle of Milk he Broke at Harris Teeter.” It probably was. 

“When collecting evidence you must be clear to look at both sides. Don’t tamper with the details in any way and make sure you don’t let your own mind cloud your judgement. Objectivity is the key to a fair and honest result. Look at everything you can find and make a decision based on where the majority of evidence leads you.,” Midnight had said, word for word, during one a slideshow on how to react to a villain encounter. The teachers had been forced to give basic hero lessons to students in every department after the kidnapping incident. You’d suffocate if put into the same room as all the notes that were taken that week. Shinso had never seen his class so attentive and bright. Even the failing student in the back, who was always looking out the window or chewing at his pencil, had her eyes glued to the screen of a paper on her desk. It’s honestly pitiful how much hope a forced inquiry can set into a group of second-best students heads.

1-C would be lucky if one of them got their hero licenses let alone became a sidekick to some unranked hero. He needs to look at his evidence. Six hundred eighty three articles on brainwashing villains were published last year if he was remembering correctly (in the country of Japan at least). There were seventy four published based on civilians. And fifty four of those articles were from one blogger. It’s unreliable to get all your evidence from one person. That can lead to major corruption. Along with that he had been reminded plenty of how his villainous quick worked. All he had to do was put together the parts of a four-piece puzzle. 

He thought he could prove people wrong. Be different. Follow his dreams. IT hurts to believe in such foolish things. Adults feed them ideas to you on a spoon while wearing a ginning mask. But behind every mask is an ugly crooked face. A face whose dreams have failed themselves. Most people aren’t living their dream life, he doesn’t even need numbers to make that conclusion. He’s no better than most people. In fact, statistically speaking, he’s worse. So. Much. Fucking. Worse. And, tomorrow, he’ll go back to the interrogation room to screw even more shit up.

What kind a monster does it take to force sins from the friend (Was Pikachu his friend? That didn’t feel quite right. Best friend maybe? Boyfriend? Classmate? Enemy? Freinemy? He- he was his something) lips and tears from his eyes. No, more importantly, what kinda monster does it take to be friends with an assassin! That’s just the sort of crowd he’d attract, isn't it? Why else would someone wanna be friends with him? He’s only ever got the pitiful interest or murderous villains. He’d-

He flinched back as an icy hand gripped onto his shoulder from behind. Forced to stop he wiped his eyes back to face the one who made the offence. Gun Head stood ridgely by the door, his face tinted orange by a dinky door light. “Um, kid, this is your dorm right?”

Looking up Shinso noticed the 1-C sign looming above like a giant guillotine blade preparing to fall. “Oh,” Shinso said. After an awkwardly long pause he added, “yeah.” After waiting for the other man to speak once more (to no avail) he opened the dorm room door. After reading himself for a headache, he was a bit shocked at what he saw. The common room was, oddly, empty. Something in the back of his brain knew this was wrong.

He decided he was too tired to deal with whatever shit was actually happening. The universe, however, had other plans. Shinso jumped out of his skin for a mere millisecond before settling back in his bones. His eyebrow lifted from their furrow, along with the rest of his body, for the first time that evening before digging deeper than they had before. 

The room, that had appeared empty not a moment before, was now filled with each and everyone one of his stupidly joyful classmates. “SURPRISE!” Everyone yelled in unison. Ren popped confetti in his face as the water girl held up a cake. Behind them, a “Congratulations!,” sign hung low. His hot soda sweat friends talked at a mile a minute, as they always did. It was more migraine inducing than usual though.

“Shinso! You're back!,” Water girl, Mia, screeches. 

“Took you long enough, we’ve been waiting for hourrrrrrsssssss.,” Window girl, Ananya, drags out. 

“Wait, are you feeling ok?,” Ren asks.

“Look I made a cake for you! It’ll be sad to see you go but we totally support you buddy!” The dude who sits to the left of him in class, Fuji, squeals

“Shinso?” Ren

“Can I eat the cake now? I-” Mai

“Hands off Shinso gets the first piece!” Zuko

“I’d feel bad for whoever you were replacing if I didn't know how fuckinh awsome you were myself!” Mia

“Shinso, are you alright?” Ren

“God, look at him, all grown up, SNIFF, I Just- I’m just so proudddddd” Ananya 

“Did the interview go as great as you planned?” Zuko

“Guys stop.” Ren

“Don’t forget to visit us you goofy, purple fuzz ball!” Mai

“And don’t worry, we’ll save Denki a piece, too bad he couldn’t come!” Fuji

“STOP! EVERYONE SHUT UP!” Ren bursts. 

Shinso wasted no time after Ren’s distraction to run off. Cause, fuck this. Not them, they’re great. Just- fuck this. A few cries of worry followed after him but it wasn’t hard to get them off his track. He jumped up every other stair before throwing his door open and slamming it closed as loudly as possible. The slam scream out to everyone to leave him the fuck alone. He can already see the derry concern dripping from his friends faces in his head. His mind plucks it away to store it in a box for later. He has enough shit to sort through as is. He won’t get a wink of sleep with his abundant mental-workload right now.

After locking the door, he pushed his desk in front of it as well. The thought of seeing his bubbling classmates with horribly perfect looks of concern plastered on their faces made his stomach acid churn uncomfortably. Unable to his, he began to pace his room. Maybe he was a delirious? Was there crack in the coca cola? Maybe he was hearing things due to sleep loss. No. One of the teachers woulda said something.

His brainwashing coulda been faulted though. Maybe Denki just thought he had talked to them. He was only saying things he thought to be true. That doesn’t mean that- no. Fuck no. They had made the questions with that in mind (which was why this event was executingly long, they could have no mistakes). The evidence wasn’t a clouded mess or covered in blood. It was painfully simple. He just chose to overlook it like he always had. He’d be terrible at any in field decisions.

Some revolting villainous part of him had held a crying murder in his grip. He scratched at his arms wanting to rip off the indirect blood stains. Imagining Pikachu, no, Denki drenched in blood was like imagining a golden retriever devouring their owner. He let an aggravated groan escape his lips as his scratched-red arms pulled on his hair.

Each step he took increased in pace and force. What was one a tired trot became a buffalo stampede. Shinso’s paper thin face crumbled to a point between his eyes at the thought of Denki. Yet, at the same time, the paper under his eyes was wet and fragil and could rip any minute tearing him apart with it. He took the paper with a raging fist and chucked it at the world with a scream. The motion gave him no relief but was addictive. He took the pillows on his bed and hurled them to the flood with as much force as possible. Two of three flingged out of their casing giving him another thing to toss. He let out an annoyed groan as he finished and punched on the ground. They were thin as ice and which caused his fists to recoil in pain after the attack. It was pleasant.

His face was hot and scrunched up. He could feel his hand coiling into fists. And his blood was running a marathon through his body. His mind begged to think about anything besides tonight but he was too addicted to the pain and too scared from the horror to shift it from his brain. It had been sewn in place and painted over for extra masseur. It wasn’t going to move with a splash of water. He knew he was on the edge and waning the jump. To throw something, or someone over. He knew he wanted, needed, to do something. This very idea pissed him off even more. 

There was no reason to be mad. All he needs to do is take some god damn deep breaths and fuck that. Screw this whole thing in fact. He was upset for Denki. He wanted to whole him and never let go. He wanted to throw him off the cliff. He wanted to jump off with him. But what he truly would plead for is to go back. To when, he was not sure. A day ago? Before he met Denik? Before he got his quirk? Before he was fucking born?

He grabbed the steel, black cup that held his pencils on his desk and whipped the pencils throughout the room before crashing the container on the floor. The ratchet metal slammed the ground, likely leaving a dent in its place. 

Shinso’s screams echoed through the building until he felt like his blood veins would pop. His face, which had already been sated with tears, both sad and angry, remained dry. He could not cry if he had no tears in him. And he had no reason to cry. This world didn’t deserve his tears. And he was too tired for that anyway. However he wasn’t too tired to stop himself from tearing the filthy sheets from his bed or to not scream his thoughts away. He was too tired to answer the knocks at his door though.

“FUCK THIS! FUCK ALL OF TH IS GODSMA N WORDL! I- I SWEAR TOR FCUKJIN!” Fuck Denki. Fuck his parents. Fuck brainwashing. FUck thiS school. FUck this god damn world. FUCK EVRYTHING. His lion-roar screams morphed into sinking worlds half the time he tried. They were as coherent as his thoughts. 

Being empty is a luxury next to being filled. When you’re empty you can sit down till your numb skin melts away from your bones. You can ignore the world and yourself. You’re ice. When you're full your body is running and running and running all while staying in place. This fucks with the damned head and makes your blood veins swivel like snakes. It makes you scream till you break the glass or yourself. Everything becomes brighter in a migraine inducing way. Like waking to a fully lit fire in your goddamn face. Being full of rage is being on fire.

Eventually his throat became too brittle and horse to prevent every other student from sleeping. To squish his red glaze away he kicked and punched and broke anything on site. His room became the aftermath of the hurricane that was him. Sleep sacked him from head to toe and his body was screaming as loud as his mouth had. He might sit if he hadn’t demolished his chari and shredded his bedding. 

A sickening laugh shocked him further. Rapping his body in a horrible sense. He began to choke on his own sizzling blood. It had come loose in his overused throat. Bile and blood began to soak whatever derby laid in its place. Waves or rage came off of him in horribly painful phases of crying and shouting and retching up whatever dreadful and cruel substance was in his mouth. The boy shook and shivered at a rapidly increasing rate. Until it was practically impossible to see any of his movements for he was just a frightening blur of madness. Spots and black danced in his vision taunting him mercilessly as he raged on his one sided war. Soon his soldiers succumbed to blood loss or retreated into his dreary mind. Finally the general of his war, his body, failed him. He shook right out of his skin falling asleep on whatever bile and blood and broken pieces of his life lay on the floor. Needless to say, he was the only student in the 1-C dorms who got a wink of sleep that night. 

xxx

“Why?,” Kaminari barley muttered. They had to turn him in. It was their job. What else could they have in mind. What else could they possibly do? Did they know he would easily escape? Were they keeping him here for a fate far worse? He grimaced at the mere thought of it. His ears were blaring a shape siren through his head. “You can’t.”

Aizawa grabbed at the easier question before he had a chance to add more. He couldn’t explain everything to his student and everything wasn't what he needed to hear. “Why can’t we?,” he gruffly responded. “It’s our job, as teachers, to protect our students. Why would we expel you for failing a pop quiz?” Before the problem child could pipe a word, a self deprecating argument or a joke, he was not sure, he added, “Don’t answer that.” 

“For all this shit life threw at you, you managed to catch Lady Luck’s eyes at least once. Naomasa Tsukauchi (Detective dude) was supposed to drop by to assist with the questioning. Dropped out last minute due to an urgent matter. That’s all he said.” The gruff man let silence loom for a few minutes so his student’s obviously groggy brain could process all that he was saying. 

“Plus, you’re a great kid. I’m not about to lose one of my best students.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, I look pretty good for a dead bitch uwu (copyright @ Guys please, its 3am - DumbassAquarius) (I love that line and intend to use it if I ever survive a near death experience) (That's^ a great bnha text fic btw). Ok so ummmmm. I wrote this in like two days... Ngl I kinda forgot I made a fanfic and then was just like "well fuck it this add some more shet." I'm probably gonna add more again too so that's a thing. Anyone have ideas for who the traitor should be? I'm too indecisive to pick so I'll probably go with whatever y'all say (probably). If you have any other ideas put them in the comments and I'll try to include them too! I was too lazy to reread what I had already written so let me know if I forked something up. See y'all again eventually? :3 
> 
> Also, has anyone here read Bloom In Winter by e_va (great fanfic about deku being a kinda villain but also not really. It's great you should read it if you haven't)? If so, did you catch the reference, eh?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter chapter but I came to a place that felt right for ending the chapter. Also, I be a lazy boi and just wanted to post it before I forgot. :3

Ok, logically speaking, what Aizawa said made sense. Wait, no. No it did not. Maybe… yeah no. Being a ‘great student’ wasn’t enough to, you know, prevent innumerous murder charges (although, it did make his neck feel kinda warm, is that normal?). If his brain wasn’t dying already, he would take some more time to think about his teacher's illogical claims. Maybe he’s even come up with, you know, an escape plan!

Alas he could barely expend enough willpower to activate his sense of hearing, yet alone the rest of his brain. Normally he would operate like a vending machine. He’d take the information and cost of others, hold them within himself, and expense a favorable outcome. Today all he could manage was to take his clients money, leaving them feeling scammed. Maybe he was the one being scammed through. Imagine being a vending machine emptied of drinks. How disappointing it would be for people to waste their value on you. To unknowingly approach seldom knowledge of what was inside you, of just how broken you really were. You’d be forced to watch people come with an expecting smile and leave with a betrayed frown. Sitting there till people realize just how useless you are and toss you. As a machine you’d be unable to fill yourself with drinks for others, yet alone stop others from dropping you in a trash lot to rot. 

Rotting away to nothing didn’t sound like the worst outcome all in all. In fact, it would match his inwardly experience perfectly. He knew his teacher was spitting lies without having to check for telltales or voice changes. Utter nonsense is never the best way to go about deception. Knowledge may lead to power but is weak on it’s own. Knowing he’d decompose among trash like himself did nothing to make him feel powerful. And it would do nothing to prevent it from happening. This man could not fool him but he could do nothing to stop him either. Correct, he would do nothing. 

Why would he after all? He was plugged into many circuits, tied to many things. All the ones that kept him running were here, in UA. The rest would tear him apart and fry him infrastructure. Taking initiative in his actions, he didn’t move to respond in any way. 

Aizawa stayed with him for some time (was it a long time? He wasn’t keeping track. His clock had been turned off with the rest of him. He could live in the past or future, He was simply existing second by second, forgetting the last as a new one came.) before leaving. Did he say something about coming back? How long had he been gone now? Was he ever here? Had Kaminari fallen asleep? 

Absently, he could feel the grimy ghost of doubt floating around him and whispering snarls of fear into his ears. He could feel the coolness of the damp ghost hovering about his clothes. Without him moving, the ghost could never soak his soul. So he remained immobile on the edge of worry. He gladly let his fears remain invisible to him. What you can’t see can’t hurt you, right?

xxx

Aizawa, begrudgingly, left his student at around 12:37 PM. Wishing he could do more, he trudged on with his day. Years of hero work helps you prioritize when and where you're needed most. He could do little more for his mentally mimed student but he had 19 other problem children to attend to. 

Detective Tsukauchi was, thank kami, had swiftly cleaned whatever mess the prior day had brought, liberating his current schedule. It had been a much easier endeavor than he’d anticipated, a necessary one at that. The thought of having to use Shinsou for the questioning again shook his rigid bones. He may be strict but he was far from cruel. 

Whatever stomach butterflies his problem children had felt before evolved into mothras overnight. The fact that they had to be escorted by more than half of the staff did little to quell their nerves as well. 

Aizawa was able to enter the watching room from the side of the finished-students side of the building. The glum looks of understanding he saw on the students on that side wore down his rusty soul further. This batch of students had gone through more than any other he’s had in their first year alone. Being forced to grow up at a young age was never an appealing process to witness yet alone experience. 

The students who were finished with their exams were guarded by local heroes for the most part. Two of which were stationed outside of Kaminari’s door to keep out angrily distraught students. He loved his kids but they'd likely jump to conclusions about what they saw last night. And they definitely need some form of a reasoning to stop them from questions the blond himself. Thinking about it made his temples pulse so he whipped his attention to the current interrogation. 

Tsukauchi had brought in two other officers, one with a mind reading quirk and one with a lie detection quirk, to ensure reliable results. At the moment they seemed to be interviewing Todoroki, who, for the most part, seemed normal. His natural tone almost made Aizawa believe they had, in fact, brought Shinsou in. No one needs to know if the man’s shoulders tensed at the idea of such a thing. No one.

“What are your future career plans?”

“I intend to become a hero.”

“Have you recently been in contact with the league of villains?”

“Not purposefully.”

“Have you given the league of villains any information?”

“No.”

“Have you worked with the league of villains?”

“No.”

With five of his gremlins left (two of which, Midoriya and Yaoyorozu, had to be talked down from panic attacks at least once. Bless their poor souls.) Aizawa was on the verge of ease and worry. While he’s been more than ecstatic at his gremlins being found innocent, someone had to be guilty. And the idea of the tractor slipping through their hands as easily as soup made his blood run cold. If everyone was found innocent that would mean they failed. Miserably. And it would likely give the perpetrator enough time to sneak off. So, yeah, don’t blame him for feeling a little fucking on edge.

Thought, seeing as he missed around a fourth of the interviews (he could watch them back later of course. Using a gadget Mei made, Nezu installed invisible cameras in the corners of the room. It was the obvious choice after all. They would need to double and triple check every detail to ensure they arrested the correct culprit. Luckly, the cameras presentes was only known by a handful of the UA facility, himself included).

With that in mind, Aizawa decided there were other matters to attend to. Fourteen other matters to be precise. After much deliberation, he decided to tend to the seven gremlins (Kirishima, Kouda, Satou, Shoji, Jirou, Sero, and Tokoyami) that had just received their interrogation. The others have had time to sleep off their worried faces and groggy minds. As for Kaminari, the kid needs some time himself. Or a basket to gather his thoughts in. And it would take a while to find a reliable therapist to give him said basket. 

Aizawa was unwavering in his decision that Kaminari was going to therapy. Begrudgingly or not. Aizawa would hate to force him but don’t think he won’t. Shinsou will likely need such a thing too. Probably won’t be the first time that kid’ll need it either. The truth is powerful and power is dangerous in the hands of someone who doesn’t want it. Who can’t control it. 

Anyway, off to help his hellspawn now. Early intervention (comforting) was far more important right now. And it didn’t hurt that they were nearby. Without much more though, Aizawa went on to check on his gremlins. He can leave his emotions for later after all.

xxx 

No one had come back to his room yet. Not that he could tell at least. Maybe they had? Not that it mattered. Curling in on himself, he scratched out an irritated groan. That was the most he had moved for a good few hours (was it hours? His bones felt quite stiff. Maybe it was longer? Who knows? Who cares?). The ache of missing something was firm in his chest but he couldn't quite place what it was attached to. Who it was attached to? Did he miss his teacher? The purple haired boy? His parents? His secrets? No, he probably missed his hopes. 

Every now and then he heard something outside of his bubble. It was oddly and repetitive and seemed to fluctuate in intensity. Footsteps. People coming and going. Huh, wonder why. There would be other, more put together sounds too. Sounds only humans could make: Talking, shouting, and-... and crying. The sobs echo in his ears and hurt him more than any weapon ever could. Why? Why does it hurt so much. For kami’s sake fucking stop! 

Any they do. The sobs, not the aching. They return throughout the next few hours but never leave entirely. Why are people upset? That’s why they cry, right? Why does he care? Each question leaves his brain before he can properly process it. The words last more as feelings than thoughts. They stick to his skin like thick clots of dying blood. They stain him like blood too.

xxx 

Almost three minutes have passed since Shoto came out. His Aizawa had accessed the various states among the students. Shock and denial rung out on most while a confused anger aroused on others. His brain knew these students would have to learn the lesson of betrayal but his heart was infuriated that they must learn it so soon. His mouth creaks open, preparing to offer words of comfort as well as wisdom. Yet before he can pipes note, a deep scream lashes out behind them. “STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!”

Pivoting his head at the noise, the room stills silently for a mere second. The uneasy calm before a storm. Then, a violent explosion racks the room. The wall inflates asif it was a balloon made of cake. The fragile substance grows outward so it crumbles apart in hulking chunks and crumbs. Except the cake is concrete and rapidly flying towards the students and him.

Fuck! Why the hell was Bakugo causing a fuss (was it Bakugo? No one else would be able to…)? Had he and Midorya got into some sorta brawl? No, the latter would be too busy muttering his heart away to care for such a thing. He turned his attention back to the students at hand as chunks of the wall flew closer. Aizawa takes a cat-like jump to protect who he can. Jirou and Sero become the recipients of this as they are the nearest to him. Whipping his scarf into a shield, he blocks most of the rubble from hitting them. 

After the initial wave echos off he looks around to assess the state of the students. Kirishima was able to block the ruble from hitting himself and two others from 1-B. And dark shadow swooped in enough to leave Tokoyami unscaved. It was too light out for him to be able to help anyone else. At least the light from the explosion seemed to have been blocked by the wall. The rest of the students seem to have a few bruises and cuts paining their body. No major head or neck injuries in sight and nothing that would lead to bleeding out, good.

Wasting not a second more, Aizawa turns to access the damages. Behind him, his students fall into a fighting stance. Detective Tsukauchi was standing from where he had fallen down and one of the three teachers who had been observing, Nemuri, runs to aid him and the other officers. They seem to have taken the brunt of the force. The mind-reader has burns covering his left arm and the lie-detector isn’t looking much better himself. Tsukauchi is bleeding from his forehead, shit, and seems to have more burns than the others. He’s- in terrible condition to say the least. “Jirou, go get Recovery Girl. Now!” With that he can sense her running off immediately. He doesn’t even have to look back.

Ignoring their injuries, the two officers seem to frantically look around and-, oh? With the walls blown up, they can see the room that mirrors their own, the waiting room. In it Midoriya and Bakugou (as well as a Yangi and Rin from 1-B) have fallen into a fighting stance as well, less aware of what the explosion initials. Yaoyorozu is running into the scene making whatever medical supplies she can: burn cream and badgers, primarily. Looking at the damage easily tells you where the bomb-- not a quirk -- went off. The interrogation room. Shit. 

Going over the interaction order in his head, they had been going by seating charts, who was up? Who had been going... All the 1-B members were there still and- shit! Tsukauchi yelled out the name as Aizawa thought of it. And in a blind panic, everyone knew who the UA traitor was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? I told you it was the perfect place to end it. (*-`ω´- ) 人 ( ¬ ‿¬)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note. The Dark Side of The Sun background is canon until chapter 10 (hint 9) in case anyone was wondering! Still not super important but thought I might put it in there. If any of y'all have questions or comments pop them into the comment section and I'll get to them when I can. Enjoy some food now you lovely chickens 😘.

“HAGAKURE!” 

At the mention of the name Aizawa broke off into a sprint. Springing around the area, blazing eyes scanning everywhere and ears as potent as an elephant’s, he quotes his mind to focus. Fighting the urge to both defend his student and lock the horrid UA traitor, the one who has slowly eroded his kids childhood, away, he wraps his capture weapons around the branch of a nearby tree. Catapulting up, he settles into a branch large enough to support him yet high enough to provide him with cover. Still, he has to crouch to stay unnoticed. 

Trailing his laser focused eyes over the triangle, he searches for any disturbances. Well, any disturbances that aren’t caused by the heroes and teachers he was with. Needing only his eyes, he uses his mind to plan further. Certain things still didn’t fit into the equation of this whole ordeal. 

For example, they still had no motive. While one could sum it up to villains being villains, tampering with future heroes, or selling information none of those pieces fit perfectly into the puzzle. While Toru was quite an extravert, she didn’t talk in a way that would change the heroes mindsets. She would join in on conversations about food, games, the latest show, normal teenager stuff. If she was planting ideas, she hadn’t dropped a seed.

Another point of importance was that, while she was close with the class, she wasn’t best friends with any of them per-say. Often she’d hang out with the group as a whole but never on one on one or small group outings. Maybe she was trying to stay detached? Maybe she didn’t have enough time on her hands? Still, doing other things and staying detached would harm her influence on the others and give her less, more personal, information. 

Having an invisible spy would prove helpful to steal, obviously, but cuckold proves harmful in actually sneaking things around; she wouldn’t be able to slip something into a sleeve without clothes or blend into a crowd with them. On that same note, how had she possibly gotten a bomb inside of the interview building with her? Someone would have seen it almost instantly upon seeing her. Especially with the size it would have have to have been to cause the damage it did. (and fuck did it cause a lot of damage. The assisting officers would be lucky if they had one arm after being in the blast. And Tsukauchi… hopefully he had enough energy for Recovery Girl’s help. He had run off right after he had heard Turo’s name but that doesn’t mean he didn’t see the man fall in his peripheral. It doesn’t mean he was deaf to the gasps and chokes of sympathetic pain that followed the movement. It doesn’t mean- no. The others are handing it. He can waste time crying later. He needs to focus)

Why did she think, or know, she would need one? That was a question to ponder for sure. They had made the second round of students pass through a metal detector. They had gone as far as to pat them down too. Afterall, they had solved the truth seeing half of Shinsou’s quirk but had no way of immobilizing the interviewee. Wanting to keep the occasion as low profile as possible, they had only brought in a few other heroes (it was quite normal for the whole staff to supervise big tests after all). They had skipped on an immobilising-hero with the thought that they’d be able to use Midnight's quirk if needed and that they could easily take on one of their students. 

Another unsettling matter was the fact that Turo was nowhere to be found. Surely she wouldn’t have been able to change so quickly? Had she had an escape plan? Why couldn't he spot her damn clothes! Of course it had to be a student (could he still call her that) with a stealth quirk. 1-A was just that luck. Always and forever it seemed. 

Scanning his field of vision twice more he leap from his tree in favor of finding a new location. Using his capture like a swing, he launched himself down and away from the tree; feet rising in a bit at the end before landing in the grass with finesse. “Have Nezu lock down the vicinity if he hasn’t already! Spread out, she couldn’t have gotten far!” He yelled behind his shoulder as he drooped down. Without looking back, he took off into a sprint. After all, he couldn’t question his student on her motives without having her there. 

xxx

The second of his recent movements was just as pleasant as the last. A sharp flinch ran across his spine as a tremendously loud commotion roared around him. It was nothing like all the other disturbing noises. It meant nothing and he could connect nothing to it. It sent chills down his spine all the same and made him feel like he had to get up and run. The noise left even more chaos in its wake. More stepping and more crying and way, way, more shouting.

“Come on! We need to go over to help!” Out the window

“But what about-”

“They came out clear and they can handle themselves, come one!” A female said followed by a rustle-y sound and then no sound, well, from the window at least.

“Stay where you are! You can’t- hey! Stop!,” seeped into earshot somewhere from his door. The sound was quiet and seemed like it had been water down. Could sound be water down? It was followed by lots of other human sounds but none said so clear. Crashes followed them too.

“Come help me with the kids!,” said the same sound from earlier. 

“Should we go-”

“NOW!”

“COMING! Come on, the kid’s not going anywhere, he’s barely moved! We’ll just help out then come right back.” That one was the loudest yet. It felt like it had been scratching at his door and made for his ears to hear. It was followed by that repetitive sound---what was it again?-- footsteps. They started quite loud and happened far more frequently then the others had. Unlike the others their pattern of sound was far more clear too. They faded away until he couldn’t hear them as if they were never they to start. Maybe they weren’t.

Despite and because of his current state, he moved enough to throw a pillow over his head. Squeezing it tighter and tighter over his ear until his rapid breath was all he could. Well, all besides the ringing in his ear. If only he could remember how to zap away his sense with lighting. Wait, why would he be able to do that? 

It wasn’t quiet, he couldn’t call it that, but the sounds felt further for a while. The thing on his head helped a lot too but he couldn’t quite understand why. His grip on it fizzed in an annoying manner but nothing he couldn’t, hadn’t, dealt with before. The thick wetness on a few of his knuckles was particularly annoying but he knew it was something he wouldn’t be able to rub away. 

He stayed like that for, well, who knows how big. Short? Long? Yeah that one. He stayed there for who knows how long. His whole day had been an endless time that lasted a mere second and he was always on the verge of understanding why but nothing before his now existed and nothing after it existed ether and the sound- and his breathing, he was breathing after all and- 

His head was jolted back into some form of reality by a loud and quite near sound: Knock, knock, knock.

xxx

Aizawa’s creeping through a series of decorative bushes, just under his height meaning he has to stay uncomfortably crouched, when he spots one of his students running about. Of course, such a thing doesn’t immediately put him off. No, he’s not put off until he realizes who it is. Or, more fittingly, who it’s not. It’s not Kirishima or Kouda or Satou or Shoji or Jirou or Sero or Tokoyami that he sees. Instead it’s Mina, pink skin and all, with her brow furrowed in concentration, that he sees gliding down the grass (and leaving a grim path of dead grass behind her). 

Ok, MAYBE, they just HAPPENED, to trust his stupid gremlins wit- and no. Any hopes Aizawa had of his students being purposely permitted out are scorched when he sees one of the heroes they brought in (QuickShack, a new, minor hero who could easily take down a few villain but has no idea how to stop a running child) running after her. Grumbling to himself about having to give away his position, his eyes take on a dark red glow as he stops the problem child. She, not so gracefully, trips on her own feet as she attempts to continue gliding only to be left with no acid. On track to fall straight on to her nose, Mina uses her hands to flip upright as if she’s dancing. Sadly this action goes wasted for she gets tugged off balance not a moment later by a certain, completely and utterly calm, teacher. One look in his eyes and her own widen in fear. Oh shet, she knows she’s fucked.

“Um, Mr. Aizawa, sir, um I can explain?” She semi-nervously says. 

“You see, um, sir, we heard a bomb and knowing about the theme of the test, thought we should come along and help! So um… yeah... And the heroes were going to so we thought-” her explanation is cut off but not by a retribution as she had expected.

“What did you say.” Aizawa demanded. Those stupid, lime-light heros had one, ONE, job and if they fucked that up he-

“The heroes were going off too? I mean, they thought they'd be of more help there than at the dorms, plus we can all handle ourselves! We are heroes in training after all!”

By now QuickShack had caught up to the group. Aizawa, decidedly, turned his glare onto him. The poor girl gulped in fear and crumbled a bit under it. If his day wasn’t so damned fucked he mighta chuckled at the sight of such a muscular figure cowering under his glare. He did nothing of the sort.

“Explain. Now.”

“Yes. Um, you see sir, several of your students ran off after the, the bomb went off. That was a bomb right? Well, sir, I was trying to gather the students back together along with my partner Blue Spirit. She, this one, was the first to break out and I followed right after her, the others, um, took the opportunity to run off while I was distracted and they went in different directions and- well- um...”

QuickShack lets her voice die as there is nothing more to say and the weight of confidence is too much to hold up while also holding the weight of his glare. Seeing as he’s not a monster, Aizawa allows his gaze to fall behind the girl. She had been attempting to do her job after all. That is, watching the brats.

“And the other heroes? Why aren’t they helping you?” 

He knew the answer already but his brat coulda been lying to get out of the hell of a detention she knew she would be getting. Honestly, he was starting to believe his hellspawn loved detention. He's gonna to have to start making it worse. Quick shack tilted her head a bit to the left as if the question itself was absurd. She looked on with a little furrow to her eyebrow before shaking her head lightly and continuing. 

“They went to the scene to help sir. What else would they do?”

Newbie. Aizawa had about had it, as usual, but kept his wits and calm demeanor about him. Looking more closely at the dorms, his frowns tugs further down his face. Only a handful, maybe six at best, of guard, heroes, are still there. He was left with two lackluster choices: Help round up his students and trust the other heroes to the search, or trust that his brats won’t ruin anything and continue on his way. He wouldn’t say all his gremlins are doing great but they all can take care of themselves and should be doing fairly fine-. Shit. Wait. While most of his hellspawn were fine there was one problem child in particular that was by all his definitions and variations and half truths, not fine. At all.

As if the man was trying to shorten his own life from stress he spawned another idea. It was held up by missing parts and plastic bands but was just as feasible, if not more so, than his others. The traitor could be after Kaminari. Revenge could be a motivator along with whatever bounty is likely on his head. On top of getting info on him they could infiltrate UA and sell it’s info for an even higher profit. But would that really be the best way to get to Kaminari? And it would be an awful hassle. Answers could wait till later. With what must now be at least 25 pros after Toru, Aizawa reluctantly decides the search party’s not where he’s needed. Hopefully Kaminari’s guards are still there. No, they’ll still be there. No one would be stupid enough to leave an area that was meant to be extra guarded unattended. 

Still, miraculously, maintaining his passive demeanor, Aizawa turns to the two disturbances. “Mina. I hope you know you have detention. For a whole week.” He says in a monotone voice laced with a drop of malice. Ignoring the annoyed, elongated groan that comes from the girl, as well the contradicting gleam of hope in her eyes (for she hadn’t been told to return to the building) he turns his attention to QuickShack.

“QuickShack, if you see any of the kids try to drag them out of danger. They can stay out if they’re with a pro,” ignoring the quickled muffled and stomped out squeal of delight behind him he continues, “Make sure everyone knows the situation. Yes, there was a bomb, but that’s not the main problem. We have a suspect for the- the test’s subject.” Faltering for a moment due to his audience, he decides to continue, “Toru Hagakure. She has an invisibility mutation so it won't be easy to spot her. If any of the kids seem even slightly distressed, bring them back to the dorms. Fighting on a groggy mind will do them no good.” 

After a moment more he remembers to add in the fact that some of the students hadn’t completed the test. And that those students should be told what’s happening in a more caring matter because they had no foreshadowing to the reveal. He doesn’t say anything about not letting them fight at all for he’s mentally given up on that conception when applied to Midoriya or Bakugou. He'd rather have a pro nearby to help them fight then see them go off on their own.

With that out of the way he sprints off to the 1-A dorms wrapping his capture weapons around stray ledges to propel himself forward faster. For all that he would love to yell at the remaining guards until their ears pop, he knows it will be no use. Because of this fact he aims straight for the dorm entryway, ready to help his student.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, when did this become such an Aizawa centric fic???? Honestly, who knows. But, like, I'm not complaining too much. Thank y'all for reading another chapter!!!!! <3333 Don't forget to sleep! 
> 
> Also, random note, if any of you need extra life blood and like reading (comics in particular) I recommend checking out webtoons. Ot's a free app and website and it's plus ultra amazing! I literally live off webtoons and fanfiction. Any-who, see ya I guess? bye!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's an A̶v̶o̶c̶a̶d̶o̶ new chapter! Thanksssss

He stayed like that for, well, who knows how big. Short? Long? Yeah that one. He stayed there for who knows how long. His whole day had been an endless time that lasted a mere second and he was always on the verge of understanding why but nothing before his now existed and nothing after it existed either and the sound- and his breathing, he was breathing after all and- His head was jolted back into some form of reality by a loud and quite near sound: Knock, knock, knock.

He wasn’t sure he heard right at first. No one had been near him and he didn’t hear the footsteps approaching (which seemed odd for some reason he could almost remember). Though the chaos outside was beginning to sound further, he had no doubt there were still a few people near him. None quite so close though. And wasn’t something supposed to follow that sound? Some deep part of him was telling him it meant he had to hide, he couldn’t be seen or he’s risk- what would he risk? Never mind that, a closer voice told him he had not to worry about such a thing anymore. (The first voice was his core while the second was his mantle. Neither reaching his crust of consciousness let alone his visible, outward crust.)

Yet, the sound, the knock, he noted, repeated itself a bit louder. This time, however, the knock had a bit more urgency to it making it louder and was paired with a voice. “Kaminari? Are you in there? It’s me! There was an explosion and I came to check on all our classmates but none of them were here.,” the vice rasped out. It spoke at a pace a step up from normal but not quite urgent. Like the urgency was an underlying flavor. The main flavor being an expensive cup of lavender tea. His chest tugged at his lungs to respond but he wasn’t quite sure what to say back. 

“Hey Kaminari, are you ok? You’re in there right? Can I come in?” She asked. She, that’s right. The voice sounded young, not, like, kid young but maybe YA type young. And the higher note to it indicated it was a female speaking. Yes, that made sense. The voice, the female voice, collected his thoughts together with a glue of protection. He was sure why but he felt the need to do something because of the voice.

He needed to grab the voice and shove it in a closet with all the other good things in his life. He needed to guard the closest with his every breath and fill the closet with anything it requested. No matter how he longed to enter, he was too tainted for the closest. No matter how he longed to enter the closet himself, he couldn’t. His ripped and blood stained clothes sewn with moths. If he entered the closest he’d destroy its contents. And nothing was worth destroying the contents, especially him.

Ok, so, yeah. It’s not like his mind was complete but it was there. He had a feeling he was never quite complete anyway so what did it matter? What had the voice, the girl, his classmate, he realized, said? Expulsion? Explosion- explosion! There was an explosion! That was- wait. Oh shet. There was an explosion, so not a great start. He knew where at least one of his classmates was. So he had to…? He had to what? How could he help them?

“Kaminari, I’m going to come in ok?” And with that he heard the familiar creak of the door opening as his classmate entered. She looked at him and after only a moment of hesitation asked, “Can I come over?” What was the right response to this again. He needed to show his loyalty without appearing hostile. The girl was hesitant for a reason, had he done something wrong? Or did he seem fragile. He needed to show her that he wasn’t about to break and was most definitely not fragile. If he was he wouldn’t still be in one piece. Wasn’t that much obvious?   
Decidedly, he gave a gentle nob. It wasn’t a sudden movement so it wouldn’t scare her and would offer something familiar and sweat. He’d pair it with a smile if his jaw didn’t feel quite so tight. Maybe a wave woulda have paired nicely as well but his body felt a little rusty-ly sore. It was almost as though he hadn’t moved all day! The minuscule amount of effort it took to nob his head even cracked his neck. Not to mention the effort it took to pull away from his pillow and straighten up a bit. You should have heard his spin, it was a mess of microwaving popcorn going off. 

The girl didn’t mind the noise at all. Instantly upon permission she came to sit on his bed. With him still laying down she seemed to tower over him a bit. At the same time she managed to look like she was at his level or smaller. He felt like he was meant to know more about her, like it would help him somehow, so he decided to inspect her for clues. 

Her skin looked flawless-- he couldn’t see a thing on it! She musta used some pretty damn expensive products-- and her uniform almost looked as though it was made to match it. The neat line between her skirt and shirt was thrown askew by untucked fabric near her hips, as if it unfurled while running. The only other dash of imperfection being russled hair.

“Um,” she spoke, “I know you’re not in the best-- state right now but, as I’m sure you know, there was an attack. I don’t know if it’s ok to tell you this yet but, well, you see, we think we found the UA traitor. You would have heard about them yesterday. It’s not super safe right now and with all the pros gone- I came to get you somewhere safer, you know? I was thinking I could bring you to the school at the nurse’s office or something, if- if that’d be fine with you of course!” 

Ok, he understood most of that. Going somewhere would mean moving and that was definitely the last thing he wanted to do right now. …But, if it was for his classmate, then, well, he could mange. 

“Or I could bring you to the 1-C dorms? The nurse is kinda far after all and Recovery girl might not even be there… You and Shinsou are friends right? That would work perfectly then! Well- um- I mean, if that's what you’d prefer…”

Shinsou…? Shinsou? Shin- Shinsou! He could recognize the name. Shinsou was his friend? Was he a classmate though? He felt like he was and wasn’t at the exact same time. General studies, yeah, that made sense. His gut seemed to be split on the idea of seeing him. One half of it wished to sew itself into his side so he could never leave. The other half wanted to flush itself down the toilet and rush as far away as the sewer could take him. However, both halves told him to listen to his classmate. 

“Y- Yeah, that’s fine.” he managed to throw out. It took a good deal of effort to tackle the words down and herd them out. 

“Great! Come on then, we shouldn’t waste too much time!” And with that the girl-- he could almost remember her name too, it was on the tip of his tongue-- gently grabbed his hand and hastily helped him up. They left the room and jumped down the stairs three at a time with Kaminari almost tripping once. He was able to easily recover though. And his feet seemed trained to easily move after being inactive for hours! Perks of being a-- a something he guessed!

Once outside he could see people running about in what one would assume to be a chaotic manor if they didn’t know better. Walking among them would be much faster but his friend had been persistent about them staying hidden, “If people see us it will only complicate things. They might get us to join in or demand we go back to the dorms. This is by far the safest option. And the traitor won’t be able to see us this way either!” 

So here they were, crawling behind some bushes, loud as falling feather, a building or two away from the 1-C dorms as the rest of the campus was either looking for the traitor or locked up in their dorms. Yay.

xxx

It had been 8 AM when Shinsou woke up. A much later time then his usual (which was never cause he didn’t sleep). Any pride that could have come with such a feat was crushed along with his surroundings. Speaking of, what the hell happened to his room- oh. Oh, right. Fuck. Ok, well, he’d think about that after he had his coffee. It was too early for that bull fucking shit.

He spared the idea of getting up to make coffee a glance at the door before promptly deciding to collapse on the floor. Or at least whatever he had hit that was on top of his floor. No wonder he was able to sleep; he had to experience a month of pain condensed down to a day. Yay. 

His stomach churned at the memory. A slow and painful process which would turn whatever was inside into a thick vomit. Luckily there was nothing inside. He had forced Kaminari, his best friend, the first person who wan’t shit to him, to spill out his life’s story. His terrible damned story. Maybe he could lie and say that what he said wasn’t true. That he fuck up the brainwashing? 

Or maybe he could convince them to just put Kaminari in jail instead of killing him. Kami, can you imagine. Kaminari being killed because of him. Because of his villainous quirk. Maybe he should just become a villain with him. Maybe that's what Kaminari really wanted. If he was a villain the whole then maybe it as best that he got caught. A part of him grimaced at the thought, but, what if this was just the price he had to pay. If he was a hero he’d have to have to put aside his bias to save more people. He’d have to let one person die for the justice of a thousand others. Maybe this was just his life’s fuck up way of teaching him this sooner. Maybe he had to know it sooner cause of his stupid villain's quirk and his stupid best friend. 

Shinsou let himself be drowned by this thoughts. Letting them pull him deeper and deeper into a lake of regretful tears chocking in his throat. Maybe it- But what if- No, he deserved- all his god damn fault- villains quirk- shoulda know- fucking hell- Fucking fuck this!- but maybe- no. A hand reached out to him to pull him out. His body was still in cased with water but him head came far enough away that he could breath in a gulp of air. Warm, scratchy, shacking air. It rasped in his lung as a second knock gently rasped on the door.

“Hey Shinsou, it’s me, Ren. Um, You don’t have to talk btu I just wanted to let you know that I’m here if you need someone to listen. We’re all here, just a few doors away. The class feels really bad about yesterday so you know.” Ren could probably feel his head dip begin to dip back into the frigid water because he quickly added, “That’s not your fault at all by the way and it’s not pity either! We all care about you Shinsou and it hurts us to see you sad. Also, Zuko and Fuji made some cake. I’ll leave it out here ok? And don’t worry, no one let Mei help, although she wanted too!” Ren stuffed out an awkward laugh to himself looking back at a memory but being crushed by reality. “See ya Shinsou,” he called out in a voice that was as quiet as he could go while still being heard through the door. 

Cake was no coffee but at least it was something that he could shove in his stomach. Whether or not it stayed there was not his problem yet. Plus it would make him feel like he was in a sappy break up situation rather than a your best friend turned out to be an ex-assassin one. Still he waited a solid five minutes after hearing Ren’s footsteps fade away before he risked scooting over to the door to pull in open. Maybe they’d give him some coffee too? On second thought, maybe he didn’t want to have a clear head. 

Sitting on his knees, he reached up to crack open the door. He did so slowly so no one would hear if they happened to be in the hall. And he only opened it enough so he could see out. In the hall lay a thick slice of chocolate cake with a thick ganache coating. The cake stood upright and had a strawberry on top (probably Ren’s fault. He was always trying to make him eat something with some form of nutrition. He was mystified he could even move with his diet and sleep schedule). The unexpected detail came via the card next to the cake. The three cards actually (and, judging by the mixed matched of handwriting on each, separate messages on each card). Sticking out his hand he tucked them under the small paper plate and brought all the stuff in. 

It was a sweat gesture and he’d read them eventually but he wasn’t ready to think about friends quite yet. Although it seemed to be all he could think about. Focusing on not getting sticky cake everywhere (his room may already be shit but he wasn’t about to make it worse) helped with that a bit.

It helped until it didn’t. Until all that was left of it was a dirty plate, a discarded fork and a sickly sweat feeling pooling in his stomach. Until seeing a small amount of food in his stomach let him know just how much empty space was in there in comparison. And until it let his tongue burn with its bitter absence. Once he had nothing no reason to stay above the water he let his weight carry him back down. Sinking lower and lower until he could no longer see the light of day or hear the birds outside. Until he couldn’t hear or see anything besides the cruel thoughts in his head, each adding weight to his body and sinking him down further.

He was soon awaken by another, less pleasant noise. One that completely threw him out of the water and had him land flat on his ass. BOOM! The giant sound ripped through the air leaving a worried chaos in its wake. Shinsou could hear as the rooms around him filled with sounds of shocked fear, “Is everyone on ok?”’s, and, “What was that?”’s. Ren gave a came to his door to ask if he was ok which he responded to with a gruff. Ren blabbled out a promise that he’d tell him if bout any news they got before running off to do whatever it is that he does.

While he didn’t wanna do shit, Shinsou got up to look out the window. He had to be able to asses what was happening if he wanted to be able to help. And as a daughter hero he had to be able to help. His suspicions about a bomb threat were confirmed when he saw a chock black smoke climbing in the distance. The smoke was latching on to the clouds like a rabid disease. It was pretending it fit in while in snuffed out any of the clouds clean purity. 

Beyond that he could hear the rumble of moment the bomb left. Pro Heros were running towards the smoking sight coming from what looked like the 1-A or 1-B dorms. The hero dorms, logically. And, if his sense of direction held any form of reliability, the venomous smoke looked to be coming from the direction he had been not a day before. That means the traitor- he could have been- are the students ok? The smoke didn’t look too thick so the bomb couldn’t have been that bad. He saw someone turning the corner slickly as if trying to stay hidden. Squirting, he was able to make out a blur of fabric as the moved from their hiding spot and-

Thunk. A thick sheet of metal slammed over the window blocking out whatever light he had on the situation. The room darken and a similar sound followed from behind him. The dorms went into lock down. 

xxx

Empty. The dorm room was empty. There was no sign of struggle, which Aizwa had determined was probably a good thing. If Kaminari was hurt it would be more difficult to get him away. That is, if he was taken by Toru. He wouldn’t have known she was the traitor so she could have snatched him up without him bating an eye. Although, seeing as he was a- knowing about his past made it seem unlikely he wouldn’t think about such a thing first. In his state though… He had been pretty bad this morning. Hardly said a thing when provoked and barely respond. Aizawa had to rely on any tell-tails his face was showing at the time. Even with that he was no mind-reader. Luckily, it didn’t take one to see that he had been fucked up. 

That was the reason he had crossed out the possibility of him going out to help with his classmates. There was no struggle though so maybe. Or maybe one of the heroes took the kid somewhere safer. Nezu kept 1-A dorms had stayed unlocked knowing some of the students would have snuck out before the explosion even finished. It would be worse to have the pros stuck inside with the students out. And if someone’s timing so wrong enough taht they got stuck in a door- that would be a WHOLE other problem to deal with.

At least it let Aizawa get into the room easily. Now, where should he go next? He should loo for Toru but some part of his gut still thought something was wrong. He could check in with a pro once outside. See if they saw him helping or heard about someone moving him to a safe location. Yes, that would do. And he could make sure the lime light heroes had put together some form of a strategy for searching the area. Clueless running would do no one good. 

Kaminari was probably fine. He’d keep him in his mind but move along for now. Cause, I mean, what’s the worst that could- nope. Not jinxing it thank you very much. So with that Aizawa turned to the kids balcony to leave the way he came. Hooking his capture scarf around his surroundings to slightly swoop down and get to his work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo, new chapter y'all. This chaos ( <\- my favorite word) brain of mind has plans but also is winging it soooo ;). Enjoy this chapter and I'll see y'all again when I can! Stay safe out there darlings~
> 
> . . . Also if anyone has any recommendations for fics drop them below plz uwu.........
> 
> I'll go now..


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